My Name Is James
by slytherincailin
Summary: Very AU. On a Vulcan where a rare and precious species known as Breeders are hidden from public view, T'Pur chooses to give up her son to offer him the chance of a normal life on Earth. Minor character death and Vulcan!Kirk. Contains slash, violence, mpreg and strong language.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This story already exists on the ks archive under my other username and has been written for quite some time. I am hoping putting it up here will remind me to keep updating it as this is where most of my stories are. As it is, this hasn't been updated in far too long and I can almost feel the glares my reviewers have been giving me for leaving it go this long. As this is AU and contains the element of a Vulcan!Kirk, please note that some slight OOC may occur. This piece also contains Protective,Possessive!Spock and an Alive!GeorgeKirk (though he does not feature as a main character). Thank you and enjoy **

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Trek nor do I make any profit from the production of this story. The star trek series belongs to Gene Roddenberry and J.J. Abrams (reboot) and this piece is written purely for entertainment purposes. **

**###**

**Chapter One: T'Pur's Choice**

"The infant is deceased."

A nurse, her black hair cropped short and her eyes, though the pristine dark of their kind, held a glimmer of apology. "You understood that the infant had only a ninety two point six per cent chance of survival born as it was seven weeks prematurely. With the unexpected difficulties of your child being born of the fertile and volatile breed, its chances were truly, never really there. There is no logic in you suffering, T'Pur, as there is no logic in keeping the deceased infant."

T'Pur held out steady arms, her face a perfect mask as she gestured once more for the child she had just birthed to be placed back into her arms. "Logical or not, I ask that the infant be returned to me. Should you find my need distasteful, take your leave. I am well and I will do what must be done as soon as my son is returned to me."

The midwife merely tilted her head, before placing the tiny body back into the outstretched arms she had taken it from only minutes ago. "I see no logic in your persistence to hold onto that which you have already lost, but as you are suffering, I deem it necessary. I will take my leave, T'Pur, know that I am merely three point eight minutes away should you need me. You will rest, should you attempt to walk, your injuries will become fresh and infection will set in. Live long, T'Pur."

The woman known as T'Pur watched the midwife lift her hand in the ta'al before gathering her supplies and leaving the small house T'Pur now called her own, all the while her hand absently stroking the bare back of the infant cradled in her arms. T'Pur's gaze became unsteady, her dark hair cool where it lay against her back as she quickened the motion of her hand against the child's back. He lay unresponsive in her arms, warm still and flushed the faintest green as though sleeping. His ears held only the softest point and his hair, sparse as it was, was fair as the sun bleached wheat she had once seen in pictures.

A son born far too early to a woman denounced by her family for the shame she had caused them by creating a child with a man not bonded to her. Love had been a lost plea to the ears of the elders she had stood before, her logical argument to keep the sire of her child falling on deaf ears. He had been bonded to another of worthier blood and she had been stripped of her titles, of her family, sent to live out the remainder of her days in a village far from the capital with a child who would never know his father.

A child now dead.

Her constant rubbing drew warmth against her palm, her eyes blank as she brought them down to stare once again at that fair hair.

Perhaps a death was best for him. His fair hair marked him as something even before his eyes could open to be the warm blue or tranquil green of every Breeder. A Vulcan born with features fair were known to be the most aesthetically pleasing of creatures. Cherished for their beauty, admired for their wild throwback streak of being more emotional than most rather than disgraced for it. A wonderful life, had it not been for one disastrous detail. A Breeder was born to do exactly that, to breed. Once registered, they were given to the highest of ranks to produce child after child, never living life merely existing for a purpose to a man cold and calculating and eager to bond their children against the Breeder's will. They were taken young, trained and coveted in a temple until barely of age to mate. They knew nothing of family, of the mother's they left behind.

"Perhaps it is better that you are..."

T'Pur froze, her hand halting in the illogical motion of rubbing against the infant's back. She had been certain... Perhaps she had lost more blood than first calculated. Her dark eyes pinned on the child in her arms as his mouth parted in the smallest of gasps and his eyes sprung open to the palest and brightest of blues she had ever seen. They studied her, those eyes, so alert for something so young. His lips parted once more, his eyes scrunching closed as a wail left that rosebud mouth, shrill and alive and... beautiful.

Tears she had not believed herself capable of filled her eyes, her arms gripping the new life that existed in her arms. Happy. She was happy. So happy... Her son was alive. He was alive, not dead as the midwife had wrongly believed and not lying limp in her arms but breathing! Screaming and wailing as all infants do.

"My beautiful child..."

Oh but no...

He would never be hers. He would be taken from her, trained to be nothing more than a carrier, loved by no one on this loveless planet. He would never know the touch of her hand against his cheek, never know the joy of having his children grow up around him. He would be nothing but a doll to be admired and drowned in gifts that meant nothing.

No, no she couldn't let that happen. She couldn't let her precious son be that, of all things. He was strong, so strong, he deserved so much more.

A thought flittered across her mind, brief and illogical and yet; she grasped it. Not far, on the edge of this village there existed a research centre built decades ago for the occasional human who sought to learn more about Vulcan from the very planet of Vulcan. Rarely was it inhabited, but if T'Pur recalled correctly, at this very moment there existed in that centre two men seeking to build a ship of both Vulcan and human design and a woman heavily pregnant.

A disguise.

If she could not save her son then T'Pur would hide him. Give him a home far from Vulcan, a home on Earth as a human. She touched the infant's pale face gently, dwelling for a moment in the simple dependence of a newborn child. She would write a note... A note begging them to take her child, a note pleading with them to alter his beautifully slanted brows, to hide his pointed ears in a mould. A note pleading for forgiveness for having abandoned her child.

She stood, the tears within her splitting with the sudden movement and spilling blood across the pale carpet of her front room. It mattered not. Wrapped in cloth, she huddled the infant close to her chest, casting barely a glance at her outer cloak before stepping outside into the gentle stillness of night.

The road before her was not a long one, though each step brought new pain and the blood of her body had begun to soak through the hem of her birthing dress, a fine trail that would be covered come dawn with new sand, as thought the planet was protecting her son. The centre was large, looming in the semi-darkness and a sanctuary to her swaying sight. She placed the child atop the front step, her note tucked between the folds of his blanket and with a swift knock, she fled, her last moments of strength pounding to her feet and carrying her as far away from her beloved son as she could until she reached the steps of her own house and lay upon the stone there, her lips tilting in a new smile and her eyes sliding shut forever.

Winona struggled from her seat at the sound of someone knocking desperately against the front door.

"Alright, alright, I hear you," she groaned as she heaved her weight up, one hand placed over the babe nestled safely in her bump. She cast a curious glance at the clock. Late to have someone unknown knock on their door but not unheard of. The distinct sounds of her husband, George, were heard as he made his way from the study towards her, his jaw opening in a cracking yawn.

"Who is it, dear?"

"Well if I knew that, George, I wouldn't be getting up to answer it," Winona responded with a grin, her hand twisting the handle until the door swung open and she was faced with... nobody.

"Well," she said, put out, "I can say that's the first time I've ever heard of a Vulcan playing ding dong ditch, why I..."

She broke off, her gaze sliding downwards as she was about to shut the door again. "George."

George Kirk moved around his wife, his blue eyes landing on the bundle of cloth wriggling on the doorstep. His wife's fingers were pale against the door frame, her eyes blown wide and her hand automatically sliding over the bump he had grown so used to seeing. A bump due any day now.

He sighed, it seemed even on Vulcan woman had unwanted babies. His fingers moved to pluck the bundle from the cold stone, unwrapping the cloth as his wife shut the door behind him. A letter fell from the bindings and Winona was swift to pick it up, her eyes wide with dismay as she read. When she had finished, a sheen of tears lay against her sight and she blinked to look into the tiny, pale face of the first blonde Vulcan she had ever laid eyes on.

"I didn't know you could get Vulcans in this colour." George supplied with a smile, though it was strained and full of confusion. Who would throw away a child? How could a blonde come to exist in a gene pool of only dark and darker? "Never heard of a blonde before."

"He's special," Winona's voice was soft, her fingers crumpling the letter in her grip as she reached out to take the tiny boy into her arms. "And he looks like a James to me."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: An Alien Concept**

"Damn it, Jim! How long does it take to put on a pair of fake eyebrows, get your backside out of the bathroom."

A slanted brow, dark and amused, was cast in the direction of the locked bathroom door before James T. Kirk returned his attention to the mirror before him. He grinned at the face that stared back, one eyebrow pale and blonde and distinctly human and the other dark and ominous, yet to be hidden under the make up and plastic putty he worked in slender hands.

"Wake up early tomorrow and you may get a slot."

His response was met only by a sharp kick delivered to the wooden frame by his brother Sam, which was seconds later followed by their mother's shout of indignation. Jim snorted at his reflection, working his brow to loosen the blasted putty and tossing his collar-length blonde hair to one side to peer at his ears. A small curved cuff made of leather and in-lined with velvet hid the near invisible point perfectly, fitted with silver rings to be something of a fashion statement, rather than something to find odd on a nineteen year old human male.

Jim shrieked when he was suddenly met with the sight and sound of the bathroom door banging open, Sam's grin all but manic as he brandished the spare key he must have dug out of some God forsaken drawer.

"Out!" The tawny haired youth all but demanded, his blue eyes sparking and his legs crossed in such a way that Jim had to chuckle as he was man-handled from the bathroom and the door was shut with a bang behind him. Winona rolled her eyes as she passed him by, a stack of Padds tucked under one arm as she attempted to restrain her curly blonde hair one-handed.

"You shouldn't rile him up so, Jimmy, you know he's panicked enough about going off planet with the new job."

Jim sighed as he took the devices from her, "he's my brother, if I can't torment him, I can't torment anyone! He should have taken uncle Chris' advice and joined Starfleet with me he'd have another four years of training before he even had to look at a starship."

Winona puffed out her cheeks as she took the Padds from him, careful not to allow her fingers to brush against his. Her touch was one he adored but as he had grown so had the sensitivity of his hands. Hand to hand contact was something her James had grown to avoid like the plague. "Yes, well, Sam is Sam and leave him do as he'll do. You're different, Jimmy, you're gonna do different things."

"I know I'm different, mum."

The rebuke was a soft one, said with an easy smile though Jim's body grew tense and Winona sighed at her words. "I didn't mean it like that, James." Her hand came up to touch his cheek briefly, her smile soft. "you're my son and you're Sam's brother. Nothing will ever change that. You being different has made you all the more special."

"Yeah, special," the blonde rolled his eyes as he followed the smaller woman down the stairs, hoisting a backpack from the table onto his shoulder with ease, "special enough to warrant one on one tutorial as a kid and never be allowed to play with anyone else. Took me falling in the garden and spurting green blood for me to realise I wasn't normal and Sam to start asking why he had an alien for a brother."

Winona set the Padds down with a jolt, her lips set in a thin line. "You're not an alien! You may have been born on some other rock, Jimmy, but you're part of this family and much as you hated being isolated, it was for your own good!" Her hands rose to run through her hair in aggravation, pulling strands loose from the bun she had battled it into.

Jim winced, pushing at the hands that pulled his mother's hair and drawing back before the flood of frustration and guilt could drown him. "I love my family. I love being here and I'll always be thankful for the life you've given me. It's just.. It'd be nice to know what I am, I guess."

For a moment his mother's mouth opened, consideration in her eyes, before it snapped shut once more. "You may learn of your heritage one day, Jim but it's not important. You were raised human and you follow human law and customs, that's what matters, no matter who tries to tell you otherwise. You're safer in disguise, sweetheart. Like I said, you're special and there are people out there who see special and turn it into a personal goal or a means to an end. Got it?"

A wry grin, "got it." Jim said, his head shaking at his mother. She'd always protected him hadn't she? Her and Dad? They'd always been good to him, always loved him and tried to include him with the rest of the world under their watchful gaze. He just longed for… Answers.

Jim jumped from the shuttle, his feet planting on the lush green grass of the Starfleet Academy grounds with a sigh of satisfaction from the teenager. "Look at it!" he announced loudly, his hands spread wide and a grin stretching his lips as he took in the pristine white buildings, the many students milling about for registration and the shuttles that seemed to come every five minutes from everywhere. "Isn't it incredible!"

"It'd be incredible if they managed to land one of these blasted death ships without scrambling my insides."

A southern voice soured by the tint of nausea that had painted his face green sounded from behind him and Jim turned to clasp his new found friend's shoulder with a laugh.

"C'mon, Bones, this is something special! Whole new life ahead of you here!"

"Much as I am loathe to give this degenerate the pleasure of agreeing with him, he has a point." Jim flung a lopsided smile in the general direction of Nyota Uhura, a woman with enough leg to almost reach his five foot ten and whom he'd had the delight of aggravating for the entire trip. She glanced at him now with no small amount of affection, her head shaking softly and whipping her ebony black ponytail back and forth. "A new life, but are you ready for it, Jim?"

Jim strode forward, his bag slung over his shoulder and his strides confidant. "I'm more than ready for this!" Jim turned a degree back to his friends as they started after him, his shoulder knocking against something hard and solid by mistake.

"Oh, I'm sorry I…."

The apology trailed off, Jim's happy grin melting to an open mouthed stare of astonishment as he brought his face up to stare at the person… being he had just walked into. Uninterested dark eyes glanced down at him, one sharp, slanted eyebrow quirking up in distant curiosity beneath a thick fringe of liquid black hair that fell to the man's pristine collar. Tall and broad and pale beneath the mid-afternoon sun, the man was a sight even to the most asexual of people, but it was his ears that Jim's pale blue eyes latched to. His hair tucked behind them, in full view of everyone around, they were pointed in the most obvious and captivating of curves.

"My apologies, commander Spock," Jim blinked as Nyota hurried up beside him, her smile polite and sincere as she all but hid the blonde from the intense stare of the man… Spock. "Jim has a tendency to not watch where he's going."

A swift nod, those dark eyes seeming almost… amused?  
>"It would be in the cadet's best interests to observe and proceed with caution should he desire to one day join the crew of a starship."<p>

And with that advice, he was gone; hands clasped behind his back and spine rigid as he turned and started off in another direction, taking himself from Jim's curious view. Bones huffed a laugh as he clapped a hand over Jim's back, bringing the younger man from his wonderings. "First taste of a Vulcan, was it, Jim? Stoic buggers with no need for the fluffy stuff we mere humans call emotion, but they grow on you. Or so I'm told."  
>Jim glanced at his friend with wide eyes, his hands lifting to clasp against his chest subconsciously and only one word of McCoy's flickering in his head.<p>

Vulcan.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: A Logical Decision**

The man on screen, had he been willing to denounce the mask he had worn for so long to hide his every emotion, would have looked particularly peeved at the news he had just received from his wife.

Sarek of Vulcan regarded his son critically from the communication's screen, his face impassive though his dark eyes betrayed a flicker of his aggravation.

"Spock."

The Vulcan addressed tipped his head in acknowledgement, his hands rising in the ta'al from where he sat by his desk in the Academy he had grown so accustomed to.  
>"Father."<p>

Sarek tilted his head in consideration. "Your mother has disclosed to me that you have denied a bonding ritual with T'Pring."

Spock again tipped his head in affirmation, his lip twitching in the slightest. "T'Pring and I have discussed the matter and though she admits the logical benefit of being tied to a family such as our own, she insists that she will bond with only one and it is not I. I cannot say that the termination of a proposed bonding has affected me negatively, father."

Sarek raised an eyebrow, an inaudible sigh leaving his lips. "You did not wish to bond with the woman, T'Pring? Is there another from whom you feel compatibility would be greater?"

"There is not," Spock allowed his spine to rest against the back of the seat, his father's acceptance at him having broken the betrothal something he had silently wished for. His dark eyes flickered to the room behind his father's form, a glimmer of humour lighting them when his mother waved happily from where she sat half-hidden on a seat in the background. "However, you are correct in assuming that a bonding with T'Pring was not something which I anticipated with ease. Although I find her aesthetically pleasing, I cannot find it within myself to believe that, should my time come, I would burn for her or any female."

Sarek's eyes remained impassive, his head bowing in thought. It was not uncommon for a Vulcan man to express displeasure with the female form, the Vulcan mind was logical enough to dictate instincts and in time discover a suitable mate. That being said, should his son desire a male Vulcan mate willing to submit, Sarek believed the chances of Spock surviving his time to be below 0.03 per cent. "You understand that the decline in the birth of fertile Vulcan males has reached a height that is unlikely to be altered in the next five point seven years."

Again, Spock inclined his head, the line of his lips tighter now than it had been as he caught sight of his human mother staring at both he and his father in obvious concern. "I am aware, father, as I am aware that Vulcans are compatible with several other species, human and Romulan being the most logical of solutions. Should I bond with another, I believe the advances of the Vulcan Science Academy in regards to artificial breeding shall in time be perfected."

Sarek opened his mouth to speak, only to be poked lightly aside as his mother's face filled the screen with a bright smile. "Oh, Spock ,we don't care if you ever have children, that's entirely up to you sweetheart. The only thing that matters is that you're happy and you find someone in time, okay? Don't leave it to the last minute!"

Spock's lips twitched in the briefest of close-mouthed smiles. "I assure you, mother, I will not." He straightened his spine, his hand rising in a show of departure as his father raised his own hand and caught his son's eye.

"Live long and prosper."

###  
>(Four Years Later)<p>

Twenty-three year old James T. Kirk stood behind the sleek panelled desk of the office-room, his pale hands clasped behind his back and his long legs rigid to attention. He stood in his cadet's uniform, bright pale eyes staring straight ahead and his flyaway blonde curls swayed to some semblance of control where they rested beneath the stiff collar.

The man seated behind the expensive desk regarded him with cool eyes, his heavily lined mouth and greying hair giving way to the captain's increasing age. Christopher Pike heaved a growling sigh, his mouth turning down in a scowl.

"What am I going to do with you?"

Pink lips stretched, quirking in an all too familiar grin as those blue eyes flicked to him. "You could just let me go with a warning, how was I supposed to know the Admiral's beagle was on a strict diet and wasn't to be fed dog treats? No fault of mine the thing hacked up all over his new shoes."

Chris brought a calloused hand up to wipe at his face, another growl leaving him as he glared half-heartedly up at the kid he had all but helped raise. Damn it all, but how could he stay mad at the boy? Every time he so much as glanced at Jim, Chris was dragged back to that hot as hell planet and the day the kid had been dumped on their doorstep, Winona Kirk shrieking bloody hell when he had asked if it wouldn't be better to take the kid to the Vulcan Embassy.

And look what bringing a Vulcan to Earth had gotten them? A hell raiser and smart-assed trickster who could wrap the three who had found him around his little pinky and who attracted trouble like a well kept magnet. Chris raised a pointed finger in the boy's direction, mouth set. "That's twice, Jim, you've gone and messed up. Twice you've had to be dragged into my office and once you would have gotten expelled had Commander Spock not waved your meddling off as not an adequate use of his time; which, I might add is bull. You're lucky the guy has a soft spot for you, Jim."

The Vulcan-raised human rolled his eyes, his fake blonde eyebrows rising in disbelief and his arms lifting to fold defensively before his chest as he snorted. "Soft spot? The guy just realised I was smarter than him, I mean how else would I have beat his stupid no-win test."

"Because you cheated," Pike growled the response, shifting to stand and round the desk, "as well you and I and Commander Spock know, and half the bloody Academy. You were damned lucky he didn't call for a trial and have you packing your bags, kid. But besides that, you've been too damned careless, Jim. Two marks against you, not to mention the time you hacked into my personal information file to download all the known interaction and known history of Vulcan." Pike's voice lowered to a hiss, his eyes locking with Jim's, "which, by the way, you're lucky only I cottoned on to, 'cause it's damn suspicious when a student goes looking for that kind of info."

"That was like four years ago!" Jim all but spluttered, his hands raised in a motion of defencelessness and his eyes blowing wide, "besides, soon as I mentioned Vulcan you and Mum clamped up tighter then a spring-lock and Dad's been off planet for years, I had to find the information from somewhere, Chris, I'd just found out what I was, that I wasn't some freak, that I actually had a species I could genetically relate to!"

Jim scowled as he folded into the chair behind him, his hands stuffed beneath his arms and his chest lifting with each indrawn breath as his heart quickened in his side. He watched the man he had come to call an uncle and then a friend groan and rub his face again with his hands, as though that would sort out the rambling thoughts inside his head. He didn't want to see Pike suffer, he didn't want to see anyone suffer or be so mad at him that they lashed out, their anger an invisible wound inside his own mind. It was his way, it was how he did things, how he liked to do things. The information he had read and re-read on Vulcan society and history had given him a sense of place, yes, but he would never be himself if he followed the sensible, straight path so many others of his kind followed. As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't his kind. From what he had read, he was an oddity of his kind as much as he had been an oddity on Earth. He was a human-raised Vulcan, complete with snotty attitude, sarcasm and a sense of humour that went too far. If he got rid of that… If he tried to be some robot following all the rules he'd lose himself. He'd be… Nobody.

"What am I going to do with you, kid?"

Chris' voice was wry, friendly, his head shaking in the exasperated way Jim had come to know as a child. The captain sat with a huff on the edge of his desk, regarding the young cadet with serious eyes. Silence passed, easy between the men who had known one another for so long.

"I'm going away." Pike announced suddenly, his eyes narrowed in thought. "My ship's been sanctioned to run a routine mission, a drop off to one of the newer federation planets. I've been given permission to put together a crew, both secondary and primary. I can't have you on the bridge messing up shit but I can enrol you as an Ensign, maybe a helper for Doctor McCoy, he's a friend of yours right?"

Jim felt his lips spread in a smile, his back straightening as he regarded the man before him. A routine mission? With his best friend and Chris Pike?

"Only if I get to tell Bones."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four: Goodnight, Commander**

Nyota watched him like a mother might watch her loose child on a crowded shuttle station, with the full expectation that, should she move her eyes for only a moment, he would be gone. He ran a hand through tousled blonde hair as he watched her watch him stand stock-still amidst the hundreds of crew members milling about them to work together like one big happy family.

"I'm not going to run off somewhere."

"I don't believe you."

"Ah, Nyota…"

"Save it, Kirk, I'm not taking my eye off of you. If Pike found out I let you go traipsing about the ship before we take off, he'd string me up. You're not moving 'till everyone's in place enough to shoo you away."

Jim hissed through his teeth, a near inhuman sound that did little but draw an amused quirk of the lieutenant's lips. "The curiosity is eating me alive… Let me just go for a quick scan of the ship, I won't touch anything, I promise!"

Nyota scowled as she grabbed hold of Jim's collar, hoisting him out of the main path where he'd stepped onto to try and blend in with the crowd. As if Jim could ever blend in with the crowd, the guy vibrated with energy like a kitten on catnip. "I don't trust you!"

Jim made a sound akin to a gasp, his hands rising to clasp at his chest, though in a place too low to be his heart, as though her words had physically wounded him. Nyota rolled her eyes, her smile straining at the crew members that shot her swift hellos. "Your heart is up higher, fool. Wasn't Human and Alien biology one of your subject studies?"

She missed the baffled look Jim cast his own chest, before he snorted in suppressed laughter. "I passed that with flying colours. I told you from day one I was a genius, Nyota, how could you ever think otherwise?"  
>The lieutenant was swift to open her mouth in retort, only to have her rebuke interrupted at the sight of McCoy barrelling his way towards them from the ship's lift; his face a mask of perpetual aggravation.<p>

"Where the bloody hell were you?"

Or perhaps it wasn't a mask.

"Lieutenant Uhura has had the audacity of withholding me from meeting you in Med Bay for my report, Bones, you'll have to restrain her… Ow!"

Jim growled at the well aimed punch as he clutched his shoulder, his brow drawn down in exaggerated disgust as he turned in time to see Nyota straightening her dress and folding her hands behind her back. She hadn't even the decency to acknowledge his scowl, the traitor.

"Well, I'll leave him in your capable hands, Dr. McCoy. He's all yours now." And with a smirking salute and a flick of her ponytail, she was off down the corridor, not so much as a parting glance. Jim caught the eye of the taller man by his side, a smirk half-hidden in that sullen face.

"She loves me really."

"About as much as Spock loves to crack a joke."

###

They were in a private portion of the Medical room, secluded behind a shut door as Jim lifted his shirt with a self-suffering sigh and allowed the heart-rate tracker to be stuck to his side, cold and now slick with the heat coming from his body.

"Why are we doing this again?"

Dr. McCoy noted the readings on a separate monitor, his brow furrowed and his lips pursed in thought. "Because Pike requires a before-we-jet-off med check on his personnel." His voice was shrew, drawing Jim's artificial eyebrows down in a suspicious scowl.

"You're lying."

Bones said nothing, maintaining his sombre frown as he stared at the readings, his spare hand lifting to cross a scanner over Jim's face, all but blinding him with artificial blue light. Jim rolled his eyes into the obvious silence, puffing his breath out and clenching his fingers around the tacky plastic of the bed. He'd never heard of some preliminary health check on anybody who didn't have a pre-existing medical condition and Jim had been healthy as an ox since day one… He assumed. His mind was an open book in the tense silence of the med bay, devoid of the shielding he had been so fascinated to discover that other Vulcan's knew from childhood. With only a few minds scattered in the room beyond, his own head was near silent, a gentle rainfall against a pool. It was with the growing crowd that Jim's energy levels vaulted; each new mental wave a tiny pebble thrown into his otherwise gently rippling pond. Often, he relished in it, in the quiet chaos that let him know he was never alone. It was only when the minds around him were angry, were frantic that he pined for the shields his brethren crafted with so much ease. He'd never had the patience of mind to even try.

"Pike just wants a check up on you, kid." Jim jolted at the sounds of his friend's voice dragging him back to reality, his blue eyes fixing on the man as Bones moved the research of Jim's medical from one Padd to another and deleted any other trace. "He says you've been bouncing off the walls the past few days and it's bugging him. Wanted to know if it was some Vulcan trademark, though how he got that idea after working with the hobgoblin I'll never understand. Heart rate's a little high but I'd put that down to excitement. Far as I can tell, you're one hundred per cent you, Jim."

Jim hopped from the bed with ease, his hand reaching out to clasp Bones' shoulder in thanks. A gesture he had forced himself to perform routinely, though the clothing was often barrier enough to prevent a flood of unwanted emotions. "Thanks, Bones. I mean it. If I didn't have you, I don't know who I'd trust to help me out and I'm sure Pike feels the same way."

The elder man grumbled something unintelligible in response, his lips twisting in a smirk as he pushed the smaller man from the room, shaking his head. If someone had told him one day he'd be best friends with a Vulcan, McCoy would have claimed the man a drunk and a liar. He watched the blonde saunter away, saluting easily to the women who giggled at him, though the lad probably had no interest in the poor sods. He'd been told of Jim's secret near two years ago from Christopher Pike himself. Summoned to the man's office, McCoy had believed himself in a might load of trouble and had cursed Jim the whole way down, only to be met in the room by Pike and a Jim with Vulcan ears and Vulcan eyebrows and a trail of dark green blood leaking from his nose from where he'd managed to smack it off his own bed post after tripping on an untied lace. He'd rushed to Pike's office in the late evening, a thick cotton towel hiding the blood and not even a passing glance at the few he encountered along the way who stared at him oddly. There had been a silence, tense and loud and filled with confusion and then Jim had grinned; that lopsided smirk that Bones had seen far too many times and the doctor had passed a hand through his hair in aggravation and sighed, "Explain later. First, get in that chair so I can fix your damn nose."

Bones shook his head again as Jim disappeared, his breath huffing out in a dry laugh. Kid was worth more than every damn hobgoblin on their hot-rock planet.

###

Jim could not sleep.

It didn't help that his average night's rest consisted of several games of chess, reading and four hours deep slumber before he felt completely well rested, but with the added excitement of being aboard an actual Starfleet ship, Jim could barely summon the patience for chess, let alone sleep. His heart beat like a hummingbird's wing against the side of his chest, so wild and frantic that he thought he should be able to hear it. Hell, a human should have been able to hear it.

He had slipped from his quarters before the consequences of being caught wandering around by Nyota or Pike could catch up with him, dressed only in the casual cotton of his t shirt and the bottoms he often slept in. He smoothed swift fingers over the leather cuffs of his ears nervously, his brow working the stiffness of the make-up-putty to make sure his eyebrows were still in place.

He walked steadily, smiling to each of the night-shift crew that glanced or waved in his direction. He knew some of them, people he had worked with, studied with, been taught by, saluted in passing. They all moved with the ease and swiftness of those who knew what they were doing and that each small job, if not done perfectly, would lead to something bigger going wrong. He passed them all by, no knowledge of the layout of the ship but drawn in one path regardless. He'd spent only a day aboard, confined to helping Bones out in Med Bay on the off chance he would go exploring. It wasn't as though he'd break the damn ship, he was simply… Curious.

His feet carried him through dark corridors, brightly lit rooms open to all and sombre passageways filled with rooms of sleeping Ensigns and workers. He stopped only when he had reached a hallway lit by a sleepy violet glow, the wall on the outer edge of the path fitted with a streak of wide, clear glass. The light was just dim enough to see the stars beyond that glass, bright and fantastic and the blanket of night that surrounded them so incredibly, he felt as though it had swallowed the ship whole. His breath left him in a peaceful sigh, his body moving so that his arms rested against the cool metal of the railing. There were no thousands of pebbles at work here, hitting his chaotic little pool of thought at each turn. There was solitude here, not so far as to feel isolated from the thoughts that kept him in company, but far enough that they barely knocked against his subconscious; a gentleness that almost slowed the frantic beating of his heart.

"You should be resting, cadet."

His breath hissed between his teeth in a gasp of surprise, his body pivoting to trace the intruder. Blue eyes met brown and Jim gave an embarrassed wince as he straightened from the crouch he'd fallen into, his blood pumping loudly in his ears.

"I'm sorry, Commander, I couldn't sleep. Is this a restricted area? I didn't know I…"

Jim trailed off, his hands buried in his armpits as he folded his arms swiftly. The commander was still dressed in his uniform, sleek and freshly washed as though he hadn't been to bed in the past thirty hours, though, Jim reminded himself, he was a Vulcan. He probably wasn't tired just as Jim himself hadn't been tired.

Spock regarded him with one raised eyebrow, his face a perfect mask of bland disinterest and that maddening curiosity. "Many of your kind seek out the bright interaction of the exercise room or the dining hall when sleep evades them, why is it you have come here? Does something distress you?"

"My kind?" Jim's brow furrowed, before he clenched his jaw at his own stupidity. His kind. Humans. "No," he relaxed, casting one last look at the stars, "No, I'm okay Mr. Spock, it was just quieter here."

He flickered a final glance at the Vulcan as he turned, his blue eyes catching the dark brown that had so captivated him his first day. Spock's expression, had he been able to name it, was quizzical; the tiniest of furrows appearing between his brows and Jim delighted himself in that small achievement, his lips lifting in a small smile as he turned to return to his room. "Goodnight, Mr. Spock."

A pause. And then, so softly that had Jim not been Vulcan he would not have heard it.

"Goodnight Mr. Kirk."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Kirk Out**

"Report, Commander."

Pike's voice was tired as he made his way from the lift, his legs bending with an audible crack as he sank into the captain's seat. He cast the greetings aside with a wave of one wrinkled hand, bringing the appendage to his eyes to massage slowly against the intense lighting of the bridge. Had he not known that he would be denied closure if he simply walked away from his position before the official date of his career end, Chris Pike would have gladly retired from captaincy a long time ago. He was getting old, not quick to decisions as he once was. The ship granted to him for his final year was one he would have gladly handed over to a younger captain. The Enterprise may have been a beauty, but she was not his ship and he could feel it every time he took his damn seat at the Captain's station.

"Systems working to normal capacity, Captain. If we are to remain at warp three we shall reach Bolarus IX in approximately two point four eight days." Spock's voice broke across his weary thoughts, drawing a grin from the Captain.

"Approximately, Commander?"

Spock stood to one side of his chair, his spine rigid in a manner Pike had come to appreciate. The Vulcan offered him a raised eyebrow, his hands moving to clasp behind his back. "Accounting for any altercations or misapprehensions that occur in the duration of our journey, as is logical, Captain."

Pike's eyes flickered once to where Spock had clasped his hands behind his back, a gesture Pike had seen on many Vulcans, but never on Jim. Now that the thought was in his mind, Jim used his hands as a source of friendly interaction almost as little as Spock did. He'd often seen the lad holding them against his chest, as if keeping them close would protect him against the brushes of emotion he had so often bemoaned about at the Academy. Pike's eyes narrowed. It was common knowledge that Vulcans were a touch telepathic species, a simple handshake being taboo amongst them and frowned upon to a point that seemed almost bizarre. Hearing Jim's complaints that his hands were often brushed against to the point where it caused him pain, Pike had assumed the kid had been playing on the dramatics as he often did as a child. It had never occurred to him to wander whether Jim's sensitivity had bordered pain because of the lack of a restraint that should have been embedded in him since adolescence. Had their desire to give Jim a human life left him with no defence?

"Captain?"

Spock watched those narrowed eyes widen briefly, snapping back up towards him with a bland smile. "Thank you, Commander, that'll be all."

The Vulcan gave an imperceptible nod, his hands unclasping as he moved to take his seat at his station once more. With barely a passing moment of curiosity regarding the Captain's strange behaviour, he straightened his spine and allowed his fingers to travel over the delicate keypad of the Enterprise, each requiring only the slightest of touches before they responded, swift and efficient. The monitor to his right tracked their predicted pathway with ease; a swift manoeuvring through the stars to find their destination. It was a routine mission to drop off supplies and gather provisions, one alike the few he had taken part in in the past. His fingers stilled.

Only, it was not like the other missions in the past. In the past he had been professional, untouchable, a perfect cadet turned Commander capable of side-stepping all that may have brought illogic and curiosity to the forefront of his mind. This mission held one thing that the previous times did not.

James Kirk.

His eyes moved from the keys to stare openly at the dark monitor before him, it's screen blank as he had yet to have use for it being switched on. His reflection stared back at him, unmoving and still, as though something external was preventing even the blink of his own eyes. His jaw set in the subtlest of lines, his brow smoothing out in contemplation. James Kirk. When he had expressed his desire for a male mate to both his father and his mother; Spock had envisioned not a human, but a Romulan or Betazoid. A species both genetically similar to himself and psychically familiar respectively. To consider a human as a Vulcan mate, something brash and open and wild and unresponsively psi-null had caused him immediate displeasure.

And yet, Cadat Kirk, were Spock to be entirely honest with himself, had captured his attention since his enrolment in Starfleet Academy. Since first he had walked into the Vulcan and Spock had experienced that maddening thrill of unrepressed excitement against his subconscious, he had been intrigued by the unsuppressed human. James was like a wild selat, his movements giddy and his curiosity knowing no bounds. When the Cadet had indecently rewired his Kobayashi Maru test to beat the no-win scenario, Spock had felt not the insult of the gesture, but the brilliance of it. When it came to James Kirk, his logic was a tenuous grasp in his mind, his instincts attached to the smaller male in a way he had never known before.

His lips parted, the faintest of sighs leaving him as he quirked an unimpressed eyebrow at his reflection. It seemed his body had chosen a mate for him despite the illogic of desiring a human who would no doubt infuriate him and pull him further from the path of Surak. He would have to contact his father, seek counsel on the reasoning behind his want. It was not a… disastrous event. He had observed the cadet on more than one occasion, gathered enough evidence to conclude that James Kirk held no interest in the female form. It would not be illogical to contemplate courting the human. In fact, the thought was one that appealed to him greatly.

"Mornin' Captain!"

The voice broke across the Vulcan's musings, his eyes darting towards where the subject of his internal debate had just departed the lift, his hands tucked firmly in his pockets and a wide smile on his pale face. Spock's eyes followed the Ensign's body as he moved with an easy grace and confidence that bordered on arrogance. His blonde hair was tousled, unbrushed, as though the man had simply tumbled from his bed with no intentions to make himself presentable. It was an effect that was oddly pleasing to the Commander's senses.

"And just what are you doing on the bridge, Kirk?"

Pike's voice, though gruff and resigned, held a note of amusement as he rose from the Captain's chair to stare down the younger man, his arms crossed in a manner Spock found familiar to the way by which human parents attempted to intimidate their young. Jim's smile didn't falter, his arms lifting in a nonchalant shrug.

"Bones told me to go be helpful somewhere else, sooo I thought I'd give the main arena a quick look see." The tone was filled with suppressed laughter as blue eyes scanned the faces of the bridge, his grin sharpening when he caught sight of lieutenant Uhura shaking her head. "That alright, Captain?"

"Should mister Kirk desire a tour around the Enterprise, I would be most willing to be of service."

The words left his mouth before he had even begun to think it, the Vulcan having already risen from his seat to make his way over to the two men standing like oppositions of war. The captain offered Spock a look of bewilderment, his mouth opening as though to comment, though no words came out. Jim's smile had softened, his hands leaving his pockets to hang idly by his sides as he stared up at the dark haired Vulcan.

"Is that a suitable solution , sir?"

Pike puffed his cheeks out at the question, his lips quirking in a smirk. "Hell, if you want to look after the kid, that's up to you. Just don't come storming in later when he does something that offends half the ship."

"Hey!"

###

They ended up in the botany lab Sulu was so fond of, Spock's hands clasped tight behind his back as he watched Jim make his way through the shelving, his hands stretched out towards the various plant life and a look of joy on his boyish face.

"This is incredible, I didn't even realise this was here!"

Spock did not comment, merely followed the smaller man at a sedate pace, his eyes fixed on the slender fingers that twisted through fresh leaves and tapped over the bright colours of the flowering plants. Jim's hands were more slender than most his age, pale and long and fascinatingly alluring. He watched the way the human handled them with a wary ease, as though cautious of what would happen should he catch his skin on some of the wires that held the taller plants up steady.

"Mister Spock?"

Brown eyes glanced at the man's face, a hint of humour lighting them when he found blue eyes watching him, pale eyebrows drawn down in thought. Jim was like most humans, an open book regarding what he was feeling. His mind fluttered against Spock's unlike any other human mind he had ever known, almost as though it wanted to force its way past the shields he had kept in place since childhood. Were he to reach out and touch a thumb to that slender wrist, Spock was certain he would hear Jim's thoughts as clear as though the man were shouting in his head.

"You fascinate me, James Kirk."

Blue eyes widened, a flush darkening the skin of Jim's cheeks beneath the calm yellowish light of the botany room as the man tucked his head down, hiding his face. It was a show of submission that, despite his belief in desiring an equal society, Spock could very much appreciate.

"If you would permit me… I would be most grateful for the opportunity to court you with the completion of our mission and our return to Earth." Spock heard the subtle hitch in the man's breathing, his face darting up and his lips pursing as he exhaled a slow breath. The scent of the James' own aroma was not so subtle, sweet as honeysuckle and as heavy as white musk, it filtered past Spock's senses for the briefest of moments before those pink lips clamped shut. The chaos of the human's inner thoughts was written in his pale eyes, panicked and unsure, until it suddenly calmed and his mouth rose in the smallest of smiles.

As swiftly as that smile had come, it was gone as Jim let out a sudden cry and pulled his hand close to his chest, his other hand rising to wrap around the appendage as his breath left him in a hiss of pain.

Spock's brow furrowed, his own hand lifting towards the cadet's in concern. "Have you sustained injury, mister Kirk?"

Panicked eyes locked with his as Jim gave a swift shake of his head and, clutching his obviously injured hand, swerved past the Vulcan and dashed from the room, his long legs carrying him swiftly away before Spock's mind could divulge an appropriate response. He saw the panicked look in the human's eyes and heard that pained gasp long after James had fled, the Vulcan fixed to one spot as his mind tried to supply a logical solution. It had been obvious that the man had injured himself on the plant wire while he had been intent on staring at Spock, and yet he had answered the enquiry in the negative, leaving Spock with the only possible solution. He had been lying. But why would a human lie so swiftly about something as mundane as a grazed hand?

###

"You fool!"

Jim stormed into his cabin, slamming the door shut behind him and gasping with each panicked burst of his heart. "Moron!" he hissed, clutching the bleeding hand close to his chest. He moaned as he lowered himself to the floor at the foot of his bed, his body bent over the aching limb.

The slice to his palm was no more than an inch long, deep enough to warrant a thin trail of emerald blood but no more and it hurt more than any injury Jim had ever inflicted upon himself. God but he'd take a thousand broken noses in place of this pain, this throbbing, unending pain that lanced up his whole arm and embedded itself in his mind.

He whimpered as curled tighter on himself, his thoughts flickering over and over that simple conversation, that abrupt request.

Permit me to court you. Permit me to court you. Permit me to court you.

"God, what were you thinking!" The yell left him suddenly, his eyes fluttering as though he expected the presence of tears, needed the presence of tears but Jim Kirk had never cried, never felt the need to cry and of course he couldn't. Vulcans didn't even have tear ducts. A groan of pain left him, both for his injury and for his stupidity. As if you could have a life with him disguised as you are! As if he would truly want you if he knew what you were. As if he would even speak to you if he knew how much of a disaster you are.

No books gave name to Vulcans with the characteristics he had, no Padd had a download with information on why he looked the way he did, so obviously different from his kind. He didn't belong there. He belonged on Earth only in disguise, always in disguise, a handful accepting the real him and even then, they grew aggravated by his restlessness.

His heart spiked, reaching a pace that dulled the pain and forced his eyes shut, his body collapsing in a gentle slump. He didn't belong anywhere, his thoughts mourned pitifully as darkness flickered at the edges of his vision, his body seeing only the trauma he'd caused in his own mind and forcing him into a healing trance he had never before experienced. He was unwanted on Vulcan and unneeded on Earth. As if Spock could ever love him…


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter**** Six: Pretty Little Vulcan**

Jim's eyes fluttered.

A desire to remain shut, to never open again. He should not wake, it would be bad to wake, why was he sleeping?

Blue eyes fluttered open, pale and glazed and seeing nothing but the blur of colours as the room he was lying within spun and tilted his perception of reality.

What had woken him? What had pulled him so sharply from the sleep he so desperately desired that he was left with half his mind, his thoughts attempting to string together, his limbs weak where he lay against the soft carpet of the bedroom.

He brushed his cheek against it, a mindless gesture he followed with a frown. Narrowed eyes focused with such abruptness he thought he might puke, his gaze zeroing in on the door. Noises flooded through, loud and tormenting and confusing; distant shrieks and yells and the sizzle of a phaser as it struck something solid.

Ah... That's what had woken him. The panic of hundreds of people surrounding him, forcing pressure on his sleeping mind until it had no option but to wake. But why panic? What was happening? He watched the door as he lay against the floor, his body a lead weight, sluggish and sleepy. He'd been woken from a healing trance, something some distant part of his brain knew was not good for him.

A scream, louder against his battered mind than it had been to his ears, then the familiar click of a door being opened and something... somethings forcing their way inside. Jim's head lifted to stare at the creatures that had forced their way into his room, their long bodies propped against the door and one lifting a communicator to snarl a series of angry sounds, a command. Their skin, where it was not hidden beneath the leather uniform, was a burnt orange; dark and oddly vibrant against his eyes.

His body seemed to freeze, all efforts of forcing energy to his weakened limbs leaving him as the weight of what he was seeing clicked within his mind. Orions. Orions had boarded the Enterprise. His blue eyes flew wide, his lips clamping shut over any sound that might betray him where he lay half-hidden behind the bed.

The taller of the pair held a steady hand against the metal of the door, head cocked as though listening for something. When he spoke, it was with a voice gravel-deep that made his Standard short and terse.

"Fool of a lieutenant. This is a Starfleet ship, if we are not beamed back immediately our lives are forfeit."

The other one's voice almost sounded soft in comparison, his near human eyes darting to stare up at the one in charge. "Meran was aiming for the cargo ship twelve clicks to our right and well you know. It is no fault of his that this crossed our path at warp speed and landed us here instead."

The taller Orion spat his distaste on the floor of Jim's room, drawing a frown from the blonde Vulcan who held himself rigidly still. "Well, Meran had better get a move on and beam us back. That's a days cargo of possible slaves lost because of this damned ship, I won't lose my life as well."

"They'll have dropped out of warp as soon as we were seen," the smaller one hissed, gripping the communicator to force a second command at whoever was on the receiving line, "Our ship will be within range before damage can come to us. Once we return, we can put a hole through that blasted beaming device your father was so proud to have stolen and go about capturing our slaves the way it works, by blasting their ship into nothing but a closed cell box ready to be raided."

A piercing ring sounded once from the communicator, loud and sharp, an alert to something about to happen. The sound stabbed against Jim's skull and he shrieked, his hands lifting to clamp hard over his ears and knocking off the smooth cuffs he had grown so used to. He shivered against the floor as the room grew silent, hands gripping his head lest that horrific sound whistle through the communicator once more. He knew the moment they had stepped beside him, their minds silent but an oppressing weight against his own.

A hand darted out to brush his hair aside, fingering the curve in his ear and bringing with it a jerking flow of dark emotions. Sadistic delight, greed, want... want... want...

He snarled at the thought, his eyes snapping open and his head twisting to clamp teeth around the hand that had touched him. The Orion let loose a shriek, before a booted foot was brought down in one swift motion on Jim's left hand.

The pain filled him, his breath leaving his body in a silent scream as his spine arched against the floor. There was no escape, no running, no fading, no hope that the pain would ever end. It filled his mind and coursed through his blood like a spark of electricity, cruel and lighting his skin on fire.

_Helphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelp_

The word was a mantra, distraught and whimpering and afraid. Jim's mind fought against the pain, his eyes rolling back as he saw the Orions exchange looks of glee, their voices murky as Jim sank into the blissful dark of feeling nothing.

"Guess this whole mess did bring something of value... The money one would pay to fuck a Vulcan breeder..."

And with the sickening feeling of his very cells breaking apart, Jim and the Orions were gone.

###

Spock came to with a snarl, his teeth bared and his body jolting upright from the Medical bed he now found himself upon.

"Woah, ease up Spock, you need to lie down, whatever those orange-skinned bastards shot you with, you've been out for over an hour. Damn Orions took down half the lower level."

Brown eyes snapped to McCoy, his face melting into the stoic mask he was so familiar with though his heart beat an unsteady pace against his side. There had been no mistaking that voice inside his mind, that desperate, frightened voice that had hammered against his shields, screaming for help until the words melted together, one continuous noise.

And now it was gone.

"James."

Doctor McCoy glanced up from the scanner sharply, his eyes narrowing on the Vulcan that was suddenly throwing aside the sheet that had been wrapped around his body, his long legs moving swiftly from the bed. McCoy stopped him from moving past him with a stern scowl, one hand on the vulcan's chest. "What about Jim? He's in the upper quarters where none of those bastards got to. Kid's been sleeping for hours, I checked on him before this whole mess started and he was fine. What's wrong with you, man?"

The Vulcan growled, his chest vibrating beneath McCoy's hand with the sound and his brow drawing down. "Jim is in distress."

Brown eyes locked with the dark blue of the doctors, darker than McCoy had ever seen them and filled with emotion that his mask could not allow him to show. The smaller man growled a curse, shouting orders at the nurses keeping an eye on the unconscious crew members before he gave a swift jerk to his head, indicating Spock to follow him.

"Dunno what you think you heard in that head of yours while out, Spock, but Jim had better be having one hell of a nightmare for you to take the chief medical officer out of the damn Med Bay."

Spock ignored the Doctor's grumblings, though they seemed doused in the very human emotion that was fear. Leonard McCoy was distressed by what could have happened to the cadet, his face an open scowl and his eyes wide as they moved passed the uninjured crew attempting to fix the minor damage caused through the lower level of the ship. No crew man met them as they hurried through the sleeping quarters of the Alpha crew, a place Pike had insisted Jim stay so that he could keep an eye on him.

McCoy rounded a corner and froze, mouth snapping shut in a grim line. An unknown yeoman lay at his feet, pale and unresponsive; though when he bent to check her pulse, it fluttered weakly against his fingertips. The growl was one of aggravation. "Damn it all! Did no one check to see if any of the Orions broke apart from the main group?" He watched Spock move ahead as he flipped open his communicator, demanding a team of nurses and security search the upper levels for any injured crew members not yet stumbled upon.

The Vulcan stood before the door to Jim's sleeping quarters, his shoulders slumping even before he raised a hand to tap in the override code to open the metal door. The scent that met him was one that almost suffocated him. Jim's scent, sweet and heavy and concentrated in so small a space and it was doused by the scent of fear. Swift, terrifying fear that curled Spock's stomach and brought the Vulcan stumbling back, away from the empty room.

He turned with wild eyes towards the doctor, his breathing harsh.

"He is gone."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Pain

Pain.

It was his own. Belonging to him in a way he had never experienced before. The pain of a family bond lost, of a marriage bond broken though no bond had existed between them. Spock felt pain with as much intensity as if Jim had been his own, his mate, his bonded and not simply a source of infatuation.

The Enterprise was alive with activity around him as he stood by his station, his eyes fixed only on the main view screen of the ship as they retraced their steps, followed the near invisible warp trail left behind by the Orion ship. Should it hold up, he calculated the odds of finding Jim at approximately sixty five per cent.

The logic of those odds formed a knot within his stomach, a knot he simply could not shake. Captain Pike was a piston of movement on the Bridge, forcing each under his command to work, to think, to achieve. He behaved as though he had lost a son. His eyes, when McCoy had choked out that Jim could be found nowhere aboard the Enterprise had been the eyes of a man who had lost something very dear to him.

Those eyes watched with him now, the human's knuckles pale against the grip he held on the back of his seat, too fraught with nerves to sit, to dwell. The federation had already been contacted, ships already boarded for take off would soon be searching for Jim, for the Orions who had stolen him.

Spock's eyes narrowed, his mind replaying the sudden attack over and over again. Their sudden appearance on the Enterprise had been accidental, that much could be determined from the panic that had sprawled across their faces, their weapons rising a degree slower than reflexes demanded to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting federation ship. Three had been dealt with before they began to attack in full, their panic allowing no room for thought, for reason.

But most had been beamed to safety before they could be captured and they had taken the cadet with them.

Jim's fear plagued Spock's mind, his own shields tainted by it. It was a constant memory that refused to be pushed aside by logic, refused to be hidden and dealt with at an appropriate time. It made him less than logical, his mask the only thing belying the destructive solutions his mind had begun to crop up.

He should have killed them all. He should have destroyed them, mind and body, before they dared lay a hand on Jim.

And though he didn't understand his attachment to a human he had barely begun to know, to a man he had watched and been watched by and yet never understood, Spock was willing to face death if it would only offer him the chance to save Jim. To wipe away the fear that the human had embedded within him, the fear embedded in Jim and to link his mind with him so that Jim would never have to fight against his shields again.

###

He was alone.

Trapped in a room barely wide enough for him to spread his arms and dark enough that he could not see, Jim was entirely alone. There was no gentle fall of active thought against his mind, no pattering that he had come to love that came from the steady thrum of human interaction. There was only stillness, a loneliness emphasised by the oppressive weight of minds that were not human, that did not think like humans, that were cold and infrequent and left him chilled to the core.

His body shook, a constant tremble not from fear but from the cold that seemed to emit from the very walls, enveloping his hot skin and causing such a gentle quake, he had not been aware of it until his teeth had begun to chatter. He had been robbed of his shirt, left in only the soft cotton of his pants and the hair he fixed again and again over his ears, never quite hiding the soft point from view. His forehead felt almost bare without the soft putty he had worn for so many years, his dark eyebrows pulled down over furious and terrified blue eyes.

His left hand was useless, broken somewhere in the centre of his palm so obviously the entirety of the inside of his hand had bloomed a violent shade of dark green, bruised and aching. His fingers curled inwards protectively, the limb clutched to his chest and giving off such maddening pain that, had he eaten recently he would have emptied the contents of his stomach. It was a pain that throbbed in both his hand and his mind, half-blinding him when he moved so much as a finger. Jim had absolutely no doubt that it was only a sense of self-preservation that was preventing him from toppling over and losing himself completely to the pain.

He had no idea how long he had been trapped here, hours if he had woken up just shortly after his imprisonment. Or days if he had not…

The noise that left him when his back pushed against the cold wall for support was a moan so hurt and filled with pain, he never would have thought himself capable of the sound before now. His body seemed undamaged other than his hand, though if the cold remained he wouldn't be able to prevent whatever sickness fell his way. Did Vulcans get sickness from the cold or did they simply die at too low a temperature? He couldn't remember…

Jim heaved a sigh. What did he do now? He could fight anyone that came through that door to his cell, he knew that. Even one-handed a Vulcan stood some chance against the weaker Orion species and if they were tall enough, he'd be glad to punch below the belt. He bared his teeth as a lance of pain shot up his arm. And the Orion who had dared touch his hand, he would personally castrate.

But there had to be hundreds aboard the ship. He couldn't fight them all off. He couldn't latch on to a link with his parents and show them his distress because there existed no link. Family bonds were performed at birth from Vulcan adult to child and Winona and George were human. Had there existed a link between the woman who had birthed him and the man who had sired him, Jim had never found it. He could only come to assume that no connection had ever been made, because he had not been wanted.

A pitiful sound left him, his body hunching over his injured hand in a mimic of his earlier actions, the stupid actions that had led him to this predicament in the first place. He huffed out a laugh filled with sadness. Chris was right, he was a bloody menace to himself.

###

"There it is, Keptin."

Ensign Chekov's voice was subdued, whispered. The ship they had been tracing for several days hung before them, suspended in orbit above the communal planet of Gerna, a planet of both human, Orion and other special inhabitants that was believed to have been used as an Orion slave trading-off point; a suspicion that had never been confirmed or determined.

Spock felt his jaw set in a way that had become familiar the past week, his hands clenching to near breaking point where they hung by his sides. He listened to the Captain with avid interest as Pike contacted the officials below, seeking permission to orbit and beam within the planet in search of a man taken as prisoner by Orion slavers. The Vulcan remained still long enough to hear only their confirmation, before striding from the bridge, lieutenant Uhura swift to follow him.

"I'm coming with you."

"I need no assistance. The Captain must remain with the ship and I shall take only security details as is Starfleet regulation. Your presence may serve to be a hindrance." Spock's voice was low, a near growl that the Commander had been unable to shift from even throughout the video contact he had had with his father only yesterday.

The lieutenant remained silent as they moved towards the transportation room, her lips clamped shut until they had arrived and Spock had taken his place on one of the transporters. She moved to stand on one beside him, casting him a wry look.

"I know you're scared for him. I've seen how you look at him and I do think you've his best interest at heart. But Jim is my friend, Spock, and I'm coming too."

The Captain arrived before Spock could begin to formulate a response, his hands moving as he directed four of his best officers towards the transporters. McCoy stood behind the man, arms folded and face grim as he nodded to Uhura.

"Spock."

The Vulcan all but vibrated with impatience, his dark eyes locking with the Captain's in an instant and his body tensing as though he wanted nothing more than to delve into battle. Pike watched the Vulcan stare down at him, for once reminded that this was not a human man, but an alien capable of creating four times the amount of damage as the strongest human male. The older man nodded, his hand lifting to instruct the Ensign behind him to start the process, his eyes remaining steady on the Commander's.

"Bring him back."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: Valec**

Jim held his hand close, his eyes pinned on the Orion who faced him, a length of rope in one hand and a scowl on his narrow face.

"You will submit, Breeder, you will allow your arms to be bound and will be led to your new master."

The room he had been blindfolded and all but dragged to in the dead of night after leaving that Godforsaken ship was like any other hotel bedroom. Though what hotel would not raise an eyebrow at the sight of a young man being gagged and hauled through a lobby, Jim wasn't sure he wanted to know. He'd seen nothing of whatever planet they'd landed him on, knew only that the air around him was thick with sweat and smoke and the bars across his window would not budge.

The Orion before him took a step closer, his lips a snarl when Jim took a step away, his body crouched and his injured arm held deathly still. Two taller Orions stood by the open door, their laughter seemingly aimed at Jim and their disinclination to help only aggravating the skinny alien that was trying to bind Jim's hands together.

The green skinned man lunged forward, his triumphant cry cut off with a howl of pain as Jim darted past him and levelled a swift kick to the man's shin, a feral snarl leaving his throat.

"You will not touch me!"

The two bodyguards howled with laughter, this time directed at their own comrade as he flew at Jim in a rage, only to have the Vulcan sidestep once more.

"Boss said they tend to get antsy when they're injured. Should have thought those bindings through, Devna, this one's got more spitfire in him than a newly mated Betazoid. Funny little breeder, isn't he?" The thug's voice called out, his friend's ringing with laughter as Jim hissed at the pair. There was nothing left in him now but instinct, raw and wild and horrifyingly confusing and yet he could not get his bearings. He couldn't fight like he wanted to, couldn't do much of anything besides keep steady eyes on the man attempting to grab hold of him and follow his gut.

"Yeah, well, if I don't bind him soon, his new owner's gonna be pissed. D'you have any idea how much he paid for this damn blonde?" The one called Devna growled and flung the rope down spectacularly, his arms crossing in a snit. "Why isn't he like the other one? All submissive and shit? Didn't seem to mind too much that he'd been bought."

Jim's head tilted as he listened to them, his blue eyes narrowed. Submissive? Breeder? They were talking as though they knew exactly what Jim was, as though they'd seen the lilkes of him before. But there were no files on what type of Vulcan he was… no characteristics in books that matched with his own. Was he a true Vulcan then? Were there others like him?

"Wait, we sold the two of them?" The taller of the bodyguards whistled lowly, his green eyes trailing over Jim until the Vulcan sneered at him, his teeth bared. "Didn't think that other one'd be worth shit. Little thing was still playing the mute a month after we picked it up from that holiday cruiser, as if it should've even been off Vulcan. They've gotten careless with what they call precious, as far as I'm concerned. First that runaway and now this one in disguise on a federation ship? How long's that been going on for!"

"Yeah, well," Devna dragged a hand through his hair, glaring at Jim, "If they don't wanna look after them, we'll gladly take them off their hands. Older one was bought not long after we arrived. Some Betazoid lord in need of a little company and this pain in the ass was spotted by the only other Vulcan on this planet. A good thing too, was willing to pay near triple to ensure he be brought to him as soon as possible."

"If you ever get the bindings on him."

Low laughter, silenced abruptly when Jim gave a feral hiss and kicked aside one of the side tables. If they thought they were going near his hands with that vile rope, he'd have it shoved down their throats so quickly they wouldn't have time to blink. His mind whirled over the conversation happening as though he weren't in the room, a cautious curiosity filling him despite his better judgement.

The tallest of Orions cast a slow glance across the shattered wood of the table, before his eyes flickered back to Jim's crouched form. "Might be an idea to stick the quieter one in here and just have the buyer's come to collect, Devna. I know he paid for delivery but I ain't putting my bollocks nowhere near something that can kick 'em up into my stomach."

###

Jim heard the door click, his breath stilling in his throat and his body freezing where he sat behind the chest of drawers.

The door shut once more and there was nothing. No oppressing minds against his own to signal the arrival of another Orion and no sound save for gentle breathing that let him know he was most definitely not alone.

"Moi Kima, Fokimo. I am told there is another like I within this room, will you not show yourself to me?"

Jim remained still, unmoving as that soft spoken voice filled the room, sweet and calming. He did not understand the language spoken, but it seemed to matter little. It was a sound that tapped against something within him that he could no longer remember, something he had lost.

A subtle sigh, before there was the sound of someone sitting on the bed, sheets shifting to allow the extra weight. For the longest moments there was only silence, the gentle breathing of the stranger allowing a modicum of calm to level out Jim's heart rate.

"It is illogical not to show yourself, brother. You will in time be hunted from that spot and those who have purchased us will not allow their money to sit in a corner and sulk."

"I'm no fucking purchase."

A stunned silence was filled with Jim berating his own mouth and scowling at his inability to keep quiet. Cloth shifted, footsteps quickened and Jim soon found himself staring upwards, at a man only a degree taller than himself and dressed in dirty white robes. He stared down at Jim with an open mouth, his auburn coloured hair cropped to his shoulders and the same shade as his strong, tilted eyebrows. Pink lips in a pale face parted and dark green eyes narrowed in reprimand.

"There is no need for such language. Where do you hail from?"

Jim's brow drew down, his legs shifting from the awkward position and his eyes unable to move from the man who was now sitting cross legged before him, pointed ears poking from his copper coloured locks.

"Hail? Oh, ah… I'm from Iowa."

"Iowa?"

The stranger's face, though blank, was almost human in his expressions. The slightest furrow to his brow, the downturn of his lips, "I do not know of the temple Iowa. There is no logic in lying."

Jim's mind was beginning to sting, his good hand lifting to rub against his face like he had seen Bones do so often. "What are you talking about? I'm from Iowa, good old farming country and probably the saddest place on Earth. Why the hell would I live in a temple? What are you, by the way?"

The man lit with panic for the briefest of moments before he schooled himself once more into that Vulcan mask, his back straightening. His eyes flickered to the hand Jim clutched to his chest, a sorrow filling those green eyes.

"I am Valec and you are not of Vulcan. You are of Earth. Fascinating."

Jim had opened his mouth to demand a better answer, his words stopping in his throat when he heard the door open once more; a flurry of voices carrying from outside and he moved so swiftly that the pain in his broken hand almost crippled him. Jim backed up against the wall furthest, flickering a glance at Valec's stoic face before his eyes trained on the men now in the room with them. A snort of contempt left him, one that drew a sound of confusion from the copper haired Vulcan.

Blue eyes scanned over the faces of the Orions, the man whose thoughts sparked against his mind like live wire and caused him to wince, it didn't take a genius to figure out this was the Betazoid they had mentioned earlier. He dismissed him, a snarl in place for the only Vulcan in the room, a man who was both broader and taller than him and with a face so horrifically bland that Surak would have been proud. He stared Jim down with dark eyes, his feet moving forward until he was only inches from Jim's disgusted features.

"I will derive pleasure from making you mine, breeder."

Jim saw red, his hand snapping out to grip the taller vulcan's wrist in his slender fingers and twisting cruelly, drawing a hiss of pain from the man.

"My name is James."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapte****r**** Nine: Shelter**

Uhura watched the Vulcan beside her from the corner of her eye, her lips pressed in a thin line at the sight of the Orion slavers disappearing inside the large, weather-beaten building she supposed was some sort of hotel. Two of the slavers they had just sighted had been a part of the crew that had vandalised the Enterprise. It was a simple matter to assume that Jim was tightly stored away in a room behind one of the many windows that scaled the building's off-white walls.

"We need a plan."

One of the security ensign's snorted, his face twisted in disgust at the sight of other people, other men slinking through the double doors of the main entrance. Possible buyers. They were almost worse than the slavers. "Fuck making a plan, that's one of ours in there. Jim may be a pain in the arse and in need of a thump but nobody deserves this shit."

A growl rose from the Vulcan, his lip pulling back over white teeth. Spock turned heated eyes on the smaller man, "You will refrain from speaking as such, Ensign, should you not desire to be stripped of your titles so far and returned to the Enterprise mid-duty."

The human's legs snapped together, his hand lifting in a somewhat shaky salute before he tucked himself closer to his comrades. "Yes, Commander."

Uhura almost jumped when those brown eyes turned to her, a **s**ingle ring of brown left around a large black pupil. "I would enquire as to what you believe a suitable plan may be, lieutenant Uhura. Knowing that the cadet is within reach and the likelihood of him suffering is ninety three point two per cent, I suggest you formulate one swiftly."

The woman crossed her arms in thought, her stare landing on the rough, pebbled ground beneath her boots. Spock was offering her a chance to make something of herself, to provide a clean way to remove Jim and beam back aboard the Enterprise to contact the Federation about the goings on of the Orion slavers on a non-Orion planet.

Her gaze flicked to the Commander for a moment. The odds that he would allow her to formulate a plan so clean were unlikely. His pale hands clenched were they rested against his thighs, tense and a frightening show of emotion on a Vulcan. His dark eyes were pinned on the building, as if he could somehow see Jim through the rock, see him and save him with only one persistent stare. No, the man would tear apart anything that stood between him and Kirk. He'd formed an attachment to the human that was both endearing and intense and Uhura could not find it within herself to fault his desire to make the Orions pay. There would be no clean solution to this.

"I suggest first contacting the Enterprise, Commander. Alert the Captain that we have found the hide out of the Orion slavers that boarded the ship so that he may alert the Admiral and a starship nearby can be redirected to capture the offenders. In the mean time, I see no other alternative but to force our way through that hotel, swiftly and quietly."

Spock glanced at her, his head cocking to one side. "An astute observation, Lieutenant."

Uhura accepted the compliment with a nod, signalling for the four security officers to have phasers at the ready as the Vulcan snapped open his communicator. "The only downside to such a plan is that we have a limited time in which to find Jim. He could be in any one of those rooms and if the Orions are alerted to us soon, they will move him immediately."

"That is not a problem, Uhura," Spock's eyes softened in the slightest as he relayed the message to Captain Pike before the snapping the communicator shut and attaching it to his belt. "Jim's scent trail should still be fresh. I will find him."

###

Jim let go of the strange Vulcan's hand, gasping at the flow of barely repressed emotion. Anger, shock, pain, anger…

The hand came across his face before he could try to defend himself, his head whipping to one side from the force of the blow and stars exploding behind his closed lids. The sting in his cheek meant a wound had opened and he hissed as air pressed against the cut. Damn Vulcan must have been wearing a ring.

The action had drawn a scream of shock from Valec, who now huddled against one corner, his form small enough not to warrant attention and his copper hair a curtain behind which he hid his pale face. Jim felt a well of pity fill him for the Vulcan, before a hand clasped over his throat and squeezed painfully.

"How dare you touch me without permission? I am aware that your kind has become rare enough to be coddled by those who purchase you and court you on Vulcan, but there will be no disobedience with me, breeder. You will learn your place."

Jim spit in the Vulcan's face, gasping with the hand tightened around his throat and breathing became a distant memory. The emotions that flooded him from a Vulcan mind barely controlled were harsh, a slash of red and black across his mind that he tried to draw away from. Fighting the intrusion was like erecting a shield of water against an avalanche of stone. It beat against his mind like some wild animal, insane. The man was insane.

He went limp in the Vulcan's grip, the sudden submission causing the hand to release and Jim to fall bodily to the floor, hitting the rough wood and curling around himself. The knock jarred his broken hand, forcing a weak moan from his throat that sounded more like a whimper. He was being sold to a madman, a madman who held no qualms about striking with his hands. Jim never thought he'd ever beg for rescue, but damn pride and damn trying to save himself, he needed help.

A warmth pressed against the side of him not pushed up against the wall, a small hand stroking through his hair slowly until his whimpers of pain began to die down. The mental brush was soft and sweet and wholly Valec. It wrapped around his battered mind like a blanket of security, like the physical hugs Uhura had given him in the past.

"He is most fascinating. You are unsure of how long he has been donning the guise of a human?"

The question from the slick voice of the strange Vulcan was answered not by the other Orions in the room, but by the sound of a door being suddenly kicked inwards, the wood splintering as it bounced against the stone wall.

And then the noise began.

The sound of attack, of phasers being fired, the sizzle of flesh as some were hit and killed and the roars of surprise; that noise was distant to Jim though it erupted all around him, Valec's body curled around his own the only thing preventing shards of wood and flecks of blood from hitting him. No, the noise that filled Jim's head was the sudden activity within the minds of the Orions, shrieking and defensive and so fucking loud he couldn't breathe… He couldn't breathe…

Was this what had woken him from his healing trance?

Jim was dimly aware of Valec's hand on his face before shields the colour of emerald leaves were suddenly there in his own mind, hiding him from the mental activity.

"You are untrained… You are unaware… Take shelter with me, brother."

Valec's voice was soft and strained in his ear and Jim had never been so thankful for anyone invading his personal space in his life. "Thank you," he whispered back as the sounds around him began to quieten and stop. _Thank you. _

"Hello? Are you alright?"

And that was Uhura's voice. Oh God, he'd never been so happy to hear that woman's voice. He heaved a sigh of relief, attempting to turn to face his friend but Valec was across him, hiding him from view and hissing at their rescuers. Protecting… He was protecting Jim.

Swift words spoken in a language he didn't understand but a voice he knew almost better than his own.

Spock.

His Spock.

"Valec!" Jim cried out, feeling the other man's body tense and shaking and afraid, "Valec, I know these people, they're my friends, let them help us." The Vulcan hesitated, his hand pulling slowly from Jim's face and leaving the smaller Vulcan alone in his mind once more. It was not a feeling he particularly liked.

Jim heard Uhura's small gasp of surprise as Valec rose. Her first sighting of a Vulcan breeder, Jim grinned and then sighed. The cut of his cheek had run a fine trail down his face, dried and stiff and his hand was a mass of bruises, more useless now than it had been before. He had to turn. He had to face them. They had every right to see him as he really was. Who he really was.

With a groan of pain, Jim hoisted himself to unsteady feet with one hand, thankful when Valec caught his elbow through the thin shirt he had been forced into and prevented him from falling. With his arm clutched tight to his chest, Jim turned to face their rescue party.

Three men he did not know in security uniform, another having fallen beneath the weapons of the Orions. The Vulcan who had struck Jim lay unconscious by their feet, his chest rising unsteadily and a flow of green beneath his head. Uhura stood stock still, her communicator halfway to her mouth as her eyes locked on Jim's features, snapping from the green of his cheek to the pointed ears. She stared at him uneasily for a moment, before letting loose a shaky breath and snapping on the device in her hand. "Seven to beam up, Mr. Scott."

Jim didn't register the "aye, aye" in response, didn't see much of anything else as soon as his eyes landed on Spock. Spock, frozen still and his face as blank as the day Jim had met him. His eyes, darker than they had ever been were unblinking as they stared at Jim, cataloguing every single inch of him. He opened his mouth to speak when he caught Jim's eye, a brief look of confusion flitting across his face.

Spock watched him, his mind terrified that he would suddenly disappear once more, though there was no logic in that fear. His eyes flitterd across the dark slant of the cadet's eyebrows, where once they had been blonde. Where his ears had once been cuffed by leather and hidden, now they were on show in the delicate point of all Vulcan breeders. Spock felt a warmth curl in his stomach, a low growl building deep in his chest at the sight of green Vulcan blood staining the smaller human's cheek.

Not human. And not Vulcan blood, Jim's blood. Jim was Vulcan.

Jim was a Breeder.

Spock's heart raced in his side, his blood becoming a distant roar in his ears as his eyes moved slowly over the blonde. They caught on the limb clasped to Jim's chest almost immediately, the once pale slender hand discoloured by black and green bruises and swollen with a break. A vicious snarl left him before Spock could restrain the heat that was building like a steady flame.

"You have been hurt."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten: Let Them Look**

"Damn it, Spock let me do my job!"

"Commander, I must ask you to desist. Jim's in safe hands now and it'd be best if you let the doctor patch up that fracture before it sets wrong."

"He requires a healing trance, not the expertise of a human doctor."

"And were he able to sink into that trance, I'd gladly allow it but he can't, you pointy eared…"

Jim sat on one of the many beds of the Sickbay, watching the argument between Bones, Spock and Pike through a wavy haze of pain medication, a smile on his lips though his skin had turned a shade of pale that was most alarming. His hand lay stretched out before him, the broken limb wrapped in a stasis gauze for the moment, a procedure Bones had flew through rapidly much to the silent and subdued aggravation of the stoic Vulcan who had refused to leave his side.

To his right, Valec sat beside him on the bed, another strange Vulcan who had refused to leave him. The copper haired alien was relaxed as he watched the battle of wills, his head tilted to the side in what Jim could only assume was amusement.

"Someone should probably fix my hand… It's turning blue."

The words Jim was almost sure he had spoken in his mind, but when Spock's dark gaze snapped to his, Jim inhaled so sharply he almost swallowed his tongue. The scent of the taller man was one Jim had come to know as subtle, musky and dense. Right now, it was anything but. It came from the Vulcan in waves, fogging Jim's brain worse than the painkillers Bones had forced into him. God but he smelled good…

A gentle hand brought his body back from where he had been stretching forward without his knowledge. Valec's lips seemed almost tilted in a smile. Could Vulcan breeder's smile?

Well of course they could, he was one of them. Jim snorted a laugh.

"The pain medication seems to having an adverse effect on him."

Bones grumbled something inaudible at Spock's words, blinding Jim for a split second as he shone something in his eyes. "Nah, that's just Jim. You raise a Vulcan to be Human and this is the outcome."

Jim felt mildly insulted.

"Alright, Jim, listen up," Bones' voice sounded in front of him, drawing him from his musings, "I'm gonna use the regenerator on your hand and it's gonna pinch. With the amount of drugs I've pumped into you, shouldn't hurt too much but just to be warned."

A stab of panic went through Jim's heart as the doctor turned his hand over gently, his other holding a small device. It was one Jim had seen hundreds of times before, had had it used on himself when he broke his nose but damn, he never thought he'd fear it like he did right now. McCoy gave him a steady look and flicked \the 'on' switch.

Jim winced, his face flinching to one side before it registered that there was no pain. He didn't even feel the gentle grasp of Bones' fingers around his wrist. One eye opened cautiously to find the regenerator fully at work, all three men watching him as though they expected him to start screaming. With a frown, Jim felt something tug him further from the scene, a wall of ivy too thick to see through forcing the pain back from his conscious mind and leaving him in a space devoid of any feeling but the gentle pulse of another mind.

Dimly, the blonde knew it to be Valec. Slim hands were wrapped around his upper arms, skin to skin, a soft voice against his ear urging him to be still, be still. He existed like that for what could have been seconds or hours, he did not know but when the light of the device blinked off, Jim's hand was completely healed and his consciousness flooded back to him in a strong wave. Valec's hands had left his arms.

"What the fuck was that?"

Jiim's voice, though slurred with the haze of painkillers that had swamped him, was panicked, his blue eyes blowing wild. He'd felt as though the world had been cut off from him, pleased as he was that there had been no pain the gentle patter of minds against his own had vanished. He'd been alone inside his head completely and utterly for the first time in his life. Was this what Vulcan shields did? Was this how they controlled themselves, by ridding themselves of empathy?

"What did you do?"

Pike's question was aimed at Valec, the Vulcan breeder looking up at him with no small amount of hesitation. His lips clamped shut, his eyes darting downward as a flood of green filled his cheeks. Submissive. The Orions had called him submissive.

"Vulcan Breeders are taught at youth never to respond to a male who is not of Vulcan, Captain," Spock's voice was almost loud in the near empty Med Bay, his eyes pinned on Valec curiously, "They answer questions directed solely at them by Vulcan males or not at all. I am told they commune with ease amongst one another, however friendship amongst Breeders is prohibited on Vulcan. I do believe that what transpired between Jim and this Breeder is the reason why such relations are prohibited.

"A carrier's mind is not as attuned to the reason of logic as that of other Vulcan's. They feel emotions more strongly, more deeply and form familial bonds with those they care for. As it is within a breeder's instincts to care for all, any small show of acceptance is enough for a breeder to form a bond. Though it is not a marriage bond that exists between them, it is strong enough that, should it be broken, it would cause both grief and loss; a trial no Vulcan wishes a breeder to ever go through. May I enquire what it is your name is?"

The final part was spoken to Valec, Spock's voice softer as he took in the sight of the Breeder half-hidden behind Jim. The copper haired carrier was older than Jim, but not by much. He appeared just old enough to have been given leave from the temple at which he had been trained, to be escorted to one of the larger cities in search of a courtship. He glanced at Spock with wide green eyes before dipping his head once more in submission.

"My name is Valec, sir."

Spock nodded once, his gaze skimming to where Jim had lifted his newly healed hand before his face, staring at it in bemusement. The vulcan's lips twitched upwards, the heat within him coiling slowly in his stomach. "And, if I may be so bold as to enquire, Valec; where were you that enabled the Orion slavers to capture you?"

The breeder's cheeks turned emerald, his hands clenching in his lap. "I had been gifted to a Lord Amkreth on Vulcan, as a sign of goodwill between those of us who follow the path of Surak and those who believe it illogical to ignore our baser instincts. The notion of marrying one whom I had never known… It frightened me. I escaped my escort and hid within a merchant ship readying to travel off-planet. None but I survived the Orion invasion."

The voice was subdued, as though he expected to be reprimanded for doing what Jim would have done in his place. Spock watched the smaller man with something akin to sorrow in his eyes. "You understand that they will search for you."

Jim lowered his hand, watching Valec bow his head and nod, his lips pressed tightly together. Had a Vulcan the ability to cry, Jim had no doubt that Valec would have been unable to see past his tears. This was a man who had offered him a moment of peace to avoid pain, who had been a shelter to hide behind when the pressure in his mind had grown too high. If it was true what Spock said, Valec and he had formed a subtle bond of friendship, one deeper than any he would share with another human. He couldn't let Valec defend himself because the green eyed Vulcan simply did not know how. He'd never been capable of thinking for his own safety.

"Let them look."

Brown eyes snapped to him, Spock's scent all the more prominent with the haze of painkillers beginning to wear off. Had the Vulcan always smelled this good?

"What are you implying, cadet Kirk?"

That voice was silk against his ears, Jim's blue eyes lidding as he tried to think past the heat that seemed to have hit his cold limbs. "I… Uh…"

"Eloquent as always Jim." Bones voice huffed from beside him, drawing a gasp not unlike a squeak from the blonde before he scowled at his friend.

"What I meant was, let them look for him. Valec's ship was taken in by Orions, the crew killed. They'll assume Valec was killed or sold off already. He can stay here and find a life on Earth once we return. No one will be the wiser."

"Except for the fact that Vulcan having a separate race of men capable of giving birth isn't exactly common knowledge on Earth, Jim. Valec won't pass for human."

"He doesn't have to," Jim argued stubbornly, his eyes flashing, "and neither do I. I know what you guys did for me was for my own good, Chris, but I'm sick of hiding and I'm sick of not fitting in. Earth will just have to learn about us and deal with it and Vulcan can go stuff itself. It's not they did anything for me! Did you say capable of giving birth?"

The final question seemed to run onto the end of the rant, Jim's heated cheeks suddenly turning pale as he glanced from Valec to Spock and back to Pike. "Did you say birth?"

Chris arched an eyebrow in his direction, "What did you think Breeder meant, Jim? I'll have sleeping quarters set up for Valec near your own and I'll have to contact the Admiral and explain all of this, and I do mean all. No more blasted secrets, I'm too old for them. In the meantime, we'll have to stop off in Vulcan for a few hours to drop off that bastard that tried to buy you. Valec, you can hide on the ship. Commander Spock, come with me."

Bones clapped a hand across Jim's back as they left, grinning down at his friend. "I always wondered what that spare pocket of space was that showed up on your scans; never occurred to me that it'd be a womb. Alright, Jim, you're good to go. Why don't you give Valec here a tour of the ship?"

Jim watched him leave to attend his other duties, the blonde's mouth open in disbelief. He turned to stare up at the other Vulcan breeder when a hand touched his shoulder briefly.

"Did he say womb?"


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven: There Is Logic In Not Taking**

"So, let me get this straight."

Jim halted the man beside him with an outstretched arm, one hand raised to pinch the bridge of his nose as he sighed. The blonde tilted his head, watching the taller Vulcan with wary blue eyes. Valec seemed almost amused, his green eyes bright as they made their way through some of the emptier hallways of the ship.

They had passed a total of twenty one crewmen, yeomen and security; all of whom had had to glance twice at James T. Kirk and threw bewildered glances in Valec's direction. The copper haired beauty draped in a fresh white tunic and trousers seemed almost not to see them, or not to want to see them. He passed through the ship with an all too easy grace, his eyes flitting to stare at the floor only when he had found himself under the intense stare of some curious male crew member.

"You're telling me," Jim brought his thoughts back to himself with a shake of his head, his hands straightening imaginary wrinkles from his clean shirt, "that on Vulcan there are males and females, which we all know about. But there's also a race known as Breeders or carriers, a type of male with some sort of womb, who are kept hidden away in temples until they're old enough to be sold off or gifted away to actual men?"

Valec raised an eyebrow in his direction, his lips tilting in the barest of upward lines as he walked around Jim to continue their journey to the sleeping quarters. "It is not correct to assume that we are not 'actual men', James. Though we are Vulcan and therefore, technically not men, we are most definitely male. The characteristics which set us apart are not only the physical and biological aspects of our make up, but the way in which our minds seek to constantly wonder; the way in which we are content to be protected and influenced so thoroughly by our mates."

"Well if the way Vulcan's think protecting us means hiding us away and forcing us to pop out child after child for some stern old leader then I can't say I'm best pleased we'll be arriving back there in less than twelve hours."

Valec visibly stiffened for a moment, his steps quickening at an almost imperceptible pace as they neared the room. "Not all Breeders are like you, James. Nor are they even like I. Our kind is becoming a dying breed, we are fading out of existence. Many of our brothers feel it is an honour and a duty to produce offspring in the hopes that we may birth a carrier, though the number of children we can carry full term has dropped immensely. There is no shame in producing children with a mate. It is my fear of facing someone who I believed to be… primal that forced me to abandon my duties."

"You don't have duties," Jim growled out, stopping before the door beside his own bedroom, a once empty space.

Did Spock believe in what Valec was telling him?

The blonde Vulcan shook his head as he keyed in the code for Valec to see, his mouth grim. "That's the problem, Valec. You don't have a duty to have kids 'till you die. You don't have any commitment to a planet that never offered you a choice and you don't seem to understand that. It's like they've brainwashed you."

The cadet sighed as he watched the Vulcan take a tentative seat on the only chair within the room, his hands twisting in his lap in a blatant gesture of distress. "I don't want to frighten you, Valec, but I will give you a chance to be who you want to be. You'll stay with me when we get back to Earth after this visit, I'll make you see that you can choose a suitable mate or whatever all on your own."

"I… Thank you, James, for your generosity though I believe it is improbable that I will ever speak with humans in a manner similar to your own." Valec's smile was small, as though it was a feature so foreign to his face that he could not bring himself to show it clearly. He watched Jim nod, a furrow between the blonde's brows as he turned to close the door. In the bright light of the hallway, the Vulcan's cheeks were flushed dark and his look of determination seemed almost bewildered.

Valec bowed his head as the door slid shut, his eyes scanning the soft, carpeted floor. Disgusted as it seemed his friend may have been with Vulcan customs and the idea of one being influenced by another, James Kirk was already being influenced by someone his body and mind was irrevocably attracted to, someone whose Time had begun to force the breeder's own Time to come upon him years too soon. Perhaps it was a positive thing, Valec pondered as he stripped himself of the loose tunic, catching sight of his body, sleek and pale and lean in the full length mirror. By the time it fell upon him, James would not be on Earth, suffering alone; he would be on Vulcan with Commander Spock and those who knew the trials of Pon Farr all too well.

"My Time is almost upon me."

Sarek stared at his son through the communicator screen, his face impassive though when he spoke, his tone was soft. "I had believed as much from our last communication. You seemed restless and you spoke of one James Kirk to an extent that your mother now believes him a part of the family."

Spock groaned, the noise leaving once composed lips as even the thought of Jim spurred the fire in his body that licked so fantastically against his blood. He raised tormented eyes to the screen. "Much has transpired since I last spoke to you. I understand the Captain has sent out brief notice to both the Federation and to the Vulcan council that the cadet was successfully secured from the slavers and that we are on course to Vulcan as we speak. Are you aware of the reason why?"

Sarek regarded his child with dark eyes, the room behind the Ambassador seemed darker without the presence of Spock's mother. Amanda was visiting with another woman of Earth recently bonded though and Spock was almost grateful. He could not discuss his time with his human mother.

"We were told that a Vulcan of unknown origins was captured attempting to buy the cadet and he is being delivered to Vulcan to face trial, as is custom. I was under the impression that you would stay for a matter of days, you and your chosen."

Spock's hands twitched where he had set them on his thighs, his fingers curling inwards as he released a slow breath. His chosen. His Jim. The blonde male who had captivated him and spiked his interest as a human and who had brought him crashing to his knees with adoration as a Vulcan. Jim Kirk.

"Spock?"

"Father, I cannot mate with James."

There was a pause, stunned for the smallest of moments before Sarek blinked slowly. "I do not understand."

"Jim Kirk is not human. He is a breeder who has been raised on Earth in disguise, with a human family. He is Vulcan but with human beliefs, human customs, human desires. Though I know he feels for me a degree of what I feel for him, to take him so soon would be to rob him of any choice he has. He is untrained, unlearned in our ways, in their ways. A meld could destroy him and I… I cannot let that happen."

Sarek's face had grown dim, his eyes almost saddened as Spock spoke through the heat that flushed his skin and tangled his logic. His son was in distress, had the mind of one who had already lost their bondmate and yet would never know his Jim the way Sarek knew Amanda.

"Spock… He may choose you…"

The Vulcan was already shaking his head, Jim's blue eyes filling his vision and pulling on his patience. "Even if he believes he has chosen me of free will, he was drawn to me because I am the only Vulcan he has ever met. I will not allow Jim to be bonded against his better judgement, even if it means that I will perish. There is no other for me but him. I must meditate, father I must go, I will arrive home within eleven point eight hours."

He raised one trembling hand in the ta'al, a fleeting goodbye before switching off the communication's screen. His thoughts were scattered, no one logical strain but a thousand images of James T Kirk and the manner in which he had collided into Spock's life. Spock had spoken to the Captain, had gathered from him the information of James' life, of his mysterious appearance on Winona Kirk's temporary doorstep.

Little of it interested him now. He cared not how Jim had come to be on Earth, he was only grateful for it. Never before had Spock questioned the Vulcan method of handling breeders until now. Until he had met James. The carrier was not something primed for labour, not something varnished to within an inch of itself and made to sit and look pretty. Jim had been completely and entirely himself and Spock was never more grateful for having known him as such.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter**** Twelve: A Safe Place**

Jim regarded the men in charge of beaming down the party around him from the transporters with a tense frown. Their ship had cruised into Vulcan orbit only minutes before, the landing crew formally suited and ready to meet with a council of Vulcan fancy men to rid themselves of the secured and battered alien caught trying to trade with Orions. Jim spared the prisoner a glance, his lip curling in a sneer when their eyes met before he was tugged behind a scowling Uhura.

Damn it all, but the adrenaline coursing through him now had to be off the scale. He was practically bouncing with nerves. No disguise to hide behind and only a weary looking Chris Pike and a terrified looking communication's officer to vouch for him. What if they tried to lock him up? Tried to hide him away and sell him off to some old, decrepit…

He visibly recoiled, the steady fire he had named as nerves in his stomach coiling dangerously. What if some part of himself remembered this Godforsaken planet and the bad start he'd had here? What if his instincts went mad and forced him back to the ship like some wounded puppy? He edged closer to Uhura, his eyes flicking to lock for a moment with the Commander's. Spock's gaze was heated and fanned that fire in his stomach like nothing in the past twelve hours had. Jim swallowed past the lump in his throat. Maybe he should just stay on the ship.

"Jim, maybe you should stay here, on the Enterprise."

The blonde caught Pike's eye as the captain motioned for several security details to stand to attention once they left the ship, dark eyebrows drawing down in aggravation. Well hell, now he had to go.

"No, Captain, that's quite alright, thanks. You said yourself, no more secrets. Well, we can't keep that promise with the biggest secret hiding out here and besides, that damn madman who tried to buy me will tell the council all about it anyway. Might as well rip the bandaid off with one quick thug, as Bones would say."

Chris gave him a wry smile, his head shaking as he watched the kid straighten his spine and stare ahead, his eyes no longer on the Enterprise crew and her machines but focused instead on whatever errant thought was keeping him from turning tail and running. Jim was tense, it was obvious in the set of his shoulders and the way he kept lifting his hands to tuck wayward strands of blonde curls behind his pointed ears. Chris smiled. Even with the alien features unhidden, Jim was every bit the cheeky, playful brat who'd tormented his younger brother and called him Uncle Chris.

"Alright, kid. On we go." And with that, he raised his hand to signal their departure.

Jim stepped one booted foot on the rough red soil as he re-materialised, his breath drawing in one gulp to taste the arid air. He'd expected it to be dry and painful after so many years of living in the humidity of Earth, of adapting to the cooler temperature, the mild winds. He expected Vulcan to be as uncomfortable as it would to any human.

It was not.

The warmth from the sun hit him like a blanket of heat, taming the wildfire in his stomach and limbs and drawing a blissful sigh from his lips. It was as though he'd never been warm, never known that heat could exist like this and not be painful. He tilted his face upwards towards a cloudless blue sky, his eyes falling shut and his mouth open. The air was dry and wonderful, tasting of sand and static and drawing his mind away from the patter of other minds, focusing his thoughts to one simple realisation. Peace.

"Jim?"

He came back to himself swiftly, his cheeks flushed green as he snapped blue eyes open to glance at Uhura, before tearing his gaze away. It landed instead on Spock, the Vulcan's mouth parted briefly, his eyes softer now than Jim could remember ever seeing them before. Was this what Spock felt like? Was this warmth, this simple peace something any Vulcan would know? Was it the peace a human got from simply being surrounded by trees? He'd never felt the likes of it before. He opened his mouth to comment, his eyes locking with the taller Vulcan's. And he closed it once more. Nothing needed to be said. He offered the Commander a rue smile instead, his cheeks flushing once more with that heat he could compare to nothing he'd ever known, and he was almost certain that the Commander smiled back.

The Vulcan Capitol was a city unlike the ones Jim had known on Earth. It was immense, not in the amount of buildings but in their height and their strength. They stood as though nothing would ever knock them over, tall and proud as any Vulcan and surrounded by smaller housing, smaller estates. The streets were the sleek black of impacted and well-used natural stone, immaculate and hot even through the leather of his soft boots. He followed the crew as they moved onwards, towards a building made of glass and black marble, his pace slowing every so often behind the tense Uhura as something new caught his eye.

The people about paid them little mind, some raising their hand in greeting to Spock and to the Captain, their gazes avoiding anyone else's less they be drawn into the human dilemma that was small talk. It was not until Jim strayed too far back and ended up walking into some steel contraption he could only assume was a public bin that he even drew attention. He collided with the damn thing knee first, a gruff yelp leaving him as he bent to clutch the throbbing joint.

"Are you in need of assistance?"

"No," Jim waved a hand, his breath leaving him in a hiss as he straightened and shook out his leg, "No, I'm alright. My own damn fault." He glanced up at the stranger with a bright smile. "Thanks though."

The Vulcan before him was male, his stoic mask bleeding into undisguised shock as he caught sight of Jim for what he was. He was smaller than Spock, but taller than Jim nonetheless and his dark eyes were most definitely confused. "You are Vulcan."

"yeah," Jim huffed an embarrassed laugh, one hand rising to ruffle through his blonde hair as he tried to edge past the stranger, "I kinda knew that already though. If you don't mind…"

He turned to leave, only to have a strong hand grip his upper arm and turn him back around, the Vulcan's dark eyes now seemed oddly foreboding. "Where is your escort? It would be illogical to assume that you are alone." He leaned in far too closely for Jim's comfort, his nose an inch from the crook of the blonde's neck before he inhaled deeply. Something far too near a sigh of satisfaction left the stranger's lips.

"You are nearing your Time."

"My what? Have you lost it, man, let me go!" Jim growled as he tried to tug his limb free, only to succeed in dragging the stranger with him. The blonde grit his teeth. Friendly landing be damned, he wasn't about to be mauled be another man. He boot swung out in one swift kick, connecting sharply with the Vulcan's right knee and causing the man to release him.

"Stay away from me!" Jim spat out as he turned around to catch up with the team, only to collide face first with a blue shirt. He tensed to jerk away, only for that scent to hit him like a wave…

Oh… He knew that scent…

The blonde leaned into the soft material of the shirt, finding the strong expanse of muscle it covered and breathing in deeply. Spock.

Slender arms drew him away, away from that amazing smell and he whined as he was captured in Uhura's grip, her eyes scanning him as she dragged him further away from the stranger and from Spock. "Jim? Jim! Are you alright? Did he do anything? I didn't even realise you stopped walking, I'm so sorry."

Jim could barely spare her a glance as he listened to Spock snarl at the new Vulcan, something strange and primal and igniting to his senses. The taller Vulcan turned away swiftly, his dark brown eyes locking with Jim's briefly and a shiver coursing through the Commander's body, before he jerked his head at Uhura to keep walking.

"Well…" Uhura pushed Jim ahead of her this time, watching him shake his head as though trying to rid himself of some trance, "can't say you don't make things more interesting, Kirk."

Jim stood in a room filled with light and clear windows. Four men and a woman who had to be older than the ninety year old widow he had seen once in a blue moon in his hometown, stood only a narrow desk's width away, all seated though they looked as though they desired nothing more than to stand and inspect Jim for themselves.

"Fascinating."

The older woman said for the fifteenth time, her stern gaze trapped on the blonde's to the point where Jim had begun to avoid looking at her, his hands tapping against his thighs as he stared up at the tall, expansive ceiling.

"He behaves in a manner most befitting a human adolescent, though you claim he is of an age when Breeders leave their temple in search of a bond mate."

Jim snorted quietly at the statement. Not much of a search when they were guided from one prison to the next and told to lie down and look pretty. His gaze flickered down, catching that of the woman's again before he ran an agitated hand through his hair. He didn't want to be here damn it. They'd given the prisoner, they'd told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As far as he was concerned it was done, dusted, polished to a shiny finish and goodbye.

It was these damned Vulcans who insisted of continuing the questions. Hell, weren't they the ones so hell bent on there being one answer and accepting that as fact. It's not like they could do anything. Pike had growled up such a storm when they'd mentioned enlisting him in a temple that the council had backed down immediately. They couldn't keep him here and they couldn't make him fall in love with someone else so it was pointless question after pointless question to quell their insatiable curiosity. Vulcan logic, his backside.

He caught sight of one of the older Vulcan's who was watching him closely, his brow furrowed. He looked almost familiar. Hadn't Jim seen that facial structure before? The blonde rubbed his hands against the coarse fabric of his trousers, distracting himself with the sparking sensation it caused within his limbs. He needed… needed… Something.

Oh wait. His eyes flew open, locking on the familiar Vulcan once more before he looked to Spock. The Commander looked his usual impeccable self, save for his eyes which seemed to be growing darker by the moment. Something clicked within him as he glanced back at the older man. He knew that face was familiar. This was the Vulcan Ambassador for Earth, the man that had married a human and created a scandal. Sarek, un-aged it seemed like since his profile had been updated in the files Jim had illegally retrieved from Starfleet all those years ago.

"Aren't you Spock's father?"

Silence filled the room, the question cutting off whatever discussion Pike and the woman had been having, though Jim's attention remained fixed on Sarek, his giddy bouncing settling down to utter stillness as he waited for an answer. Anyone else under that blue gaze might have been uncomfortable, but Sarek merely arched an eyebrow in that familiar insight to amusement.

"Indeed I am, mister Kirk."

"Good," Jim nodded, his subtle fidgeting beginning with a new burst of energy. "So you'll want to talk with your son then. We'll come with you, wouldn't do to have the Commander of the Enterprise wondering off alone we might need to take off at any time. So we're done here, then, right? Right."

And with that, Jim stood briskly from his chair and left the conference room, the door swinging shut behind him and the eyes of all inside following him until he had left.

"Fascinating."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen: A Dance Of Sorts**

Valec was hiding in what Jim had referred to as 'sickbay'; the medical region in where few but the weak, ill and professional resided, a place the blonde Vulcan had believed he would be safest.

"You'll go mad in that room by yourself and there's no safer place than Sickbay, Bones'll rip apart anyone who tries to enter who isn't on their deathbed or a part of his staff."

Jim's voice sounded in his mind, filled with unusual laughter as he had pointed Valec towards a single bed, a locker containing reading Padds set up beside it. The man befitting the name 'Bones' seemed an intimidating creature indeed, the spare moments Valec had seen him filled with irritated scowls, barked commands and gruff laughter. The copper haired Vulcan pulled his gaze from the nurses and doctor, glancing at the Padds he had been reading through, at the information Jim had supplied him on Earth, its humans and its strange interests.

His fingers held fast to one in particular, one detailing the customs of so many different regions, so varied they seemed almost like planets in their own rights. Their education, their climate, their people, their... Hobbies. His green eyes narrowed the smallest degree. The picture splayed out before him was one of a man clutching to his chest a woman, her skirts a fan of colour as she swirled to meet his embrace.

Dancing.

He had never heard of such a thing. There existed no such exercise on Vulcan or if it did, it did not apply to the likes of him. He trailed a pale finger over the slender form of the female, her face flushed and bright and filled with that wonderful smile he longed to mimic. It seemed a fantastic occurrence, an exercise not to enhance the fighting abilities but to simply exist for... Fun.

It was wholly and inexplicable human and he adored it.

"Valec?"

The Padd dropped from his grasp at the sound, his face whipping upwards as it bounced with a sharp crack against the tiled floor, the image of the two dancers frozen forever on the now worthless screen. The Vulcan met the doctor's eyes for the smallest of seconds, his breath caught in his throat and his heart thumping a terrified flutter against his side.

His mouth froze over the words he longed to speak.

Forgive me... I did not mean to break it, I did not mean to do damage, please, please forgive me...

And instead he bowed his head, letting his bronze hair hide him from the doctor's wrath and tucking his legs beneath where his body still lay on the bed. He stilled.

A shuffle of cloth and a sigh as the broken Padd was lifted before a snort of laughter brought Valec's head up slowly to glance at the doctor. His lips were pulled up in a half-smile, a smirk he knew it to be called. 'Bones' placed the useless Padd on the table top, choosing another from the pile and tapping his fingers across it, a frown between his dark brows.

"Dancing's a mighty big tradition where I'm from. The mother wouldn't let me rest 'till I'd taken some form of fancy ass classes. Damn woman all but drove me insane, but she had a point. It's not so bad when it's just you, the floor and the music."

Valec edged away in confusion as the new Padd was placed before him, its screen now filled with a selection of videos. He glanced at the doctor, face impassive as he took in that gruff front, those dark eyes that seemed kind even amidst all the frowning and swearing. Bones' hand reached out to tap on one of the videos, spanning it across the screen as it came to life in a flurry of soft music and a sweeping of female skirts as she reached out to grasp the hand of her companion.

Valec flushed at the intimacy, his green eyes pinned on the movements as he allowed his body to slowly unfurl.

"That one's called a waltz."

Green eyes flickered up as Bones retreated, his tanned hands gripping the Padd that Valec had broken.

###

He moved like one possessed, flitting from one dessert plant to the next as Spock watched him from the greeting room window. His form seemed incapable of stillness, buzzing even when he stood stock still and lifted his pale face to the heat of the sky in a moment's peace. Brown eyes flickered to where the landing crew of the Enterprise were seated, some eager to depart and some, such as lieutenant Uhura and the Captain willing to sit and wait, to think not on returning to Earth for the moment. Such a strange, short amount of time had passed since the failed exploits of their first mission to the cadet's rescue. Too little time to have it truly settle into the mind what had happened. Captain Pike looked weary, his form slouching in the chair he rested on as he politely declined Amanda's efforts to offer countless drinks and food. They deserved to rest.

Spock felt his stomach tighten, a moment's spiking of his blood lidding his gaze and drawing his attention back to the flitting figure in the garden, too restless had James Kirk been to sit inside and discuss Starfleet matters, or any matters.

He came face to face with the cadet where James had planted himself on the other side of the pane of glass, his elbows firm against the metal ledge and his face leaning enticingly into those slender hands. His blue eyes were a shade too dark, his cheeks painted a subtle green as he locked eyes with Spock, only to flush darkly and turn away, his head shaking in the illogical human attempt to clear his mind.

A mind devoid of any shielding.

Spock felt a flutter of arousal race up his spine, his eyes darkening as they watched the Vulcan move in the safety of their private garden. Linking would James Kirk now would be like linking with a betazoid just this side of sanity... Wild, untrained and completely unfamiliar. There was no equivalent to the things he would feel should he place his fingers over the man's meld points and drop himself into the awaiting madness and chaos of an untamed Vulcan mind, a mind that had never known logic. A growl trembled within his chest.

He turned from the window with the smallest of furrows between his brows. To link with James now would be to take full advantage of a breeder on the cusp of something rarely spoken of even amongst his own kind. To link with James would be to rip away any choice the breeder might have and that was something he was unwilling to think on. It would be best to avoid the blonde Vulcan, to burn in silence and solitude and allow James a choice of suitors who would gladly keep him safe. The thought burned almost as feverishly in his mind as his blood beneath his skin.

"Forgive me," his voice was rasping as he intruded on the gentle conversation, never meeting the eyes of his father or mother, "but I will retire for the evening to meditate. Should you desire rest, both my family and I offer room for all of you. If you would excuse me, Captain."

His retreat was hasty, to escape the questioning gaze of his crew members and the terror that he knew was slowly filling his mother. Sarek would care for Amanda, as he would care and offer advice to Jim before the smaller Vulcan's blood began to truly boil. It was all that Spock could offer the man he so desperately yearned for and desired to protect.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen: .Want. Want. Want.  
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A guttural growl and the walls were closing in.

His fingers braced against the wall they traced upon in obscene patterns, rigid for a moment as a shiver bowed his spine and heat thrummed like a steady friend beneath his skin.

What was wrong with him?

It passed; a momentary lapse in mind, in sense until he lay breathing against the wall once more, his muscles coiled tight and his body maddeningly… Alone.

Jim opened his mouth, though no sound left his lips save for the harsh panting of his own breath. His blue eyes flickered in the darkness of the guest bedroom, not quite seeing what surrounded him but searching for a brace, for something to fall against should his strength leave him. He had never before known lust such as this.

For it was unmistakably and most deliciously lust that he was feeling.

His mind sought not the answers he had longed for as a child nor the reasons why he was keen to bend like a beast in heat. His body burned in a manner that should have scared him, should have had him begging Bones to check him for some god awful disease. But it did not scare him. It fascinated him.

Another lance of something so akin to both pleasure and pain had him driving away from the cold wall he was braced against, his hands sliding through his own sweat-slicked curls. His knees hit the floor with a sickening thud, spreading against the sleek tile until he had to move one flushed hand to the floor beneath his thighs lest he lose his balance and topple.

The heat… The heat he could suffer through. Even if it meant to burn away at him from the inside until nothing remained of him but dust; Jim would happily succumb to it. He would burn alive writhing in pleasure and confusion and the chaos of his own mind as it poured across the atmosphere like lava, seeking anything that could keep it from leaking away altogether… Lost.

Want.

_Wantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwant…_

Another growl spilled from his lips, more purr than anything against the inky darkness and the spiking lust that had him bracing his hand against the floor, his knees splayed apart as though the position offered him some small amount of release. His clothes had been discarded, little regard now for decency or shame when his very blood sparked like livewire against skin so hot it was flushed a pale green from forehead to toe.

It was that smell.

He breathed deep through his mouth, head falling back and silken hair scorching his upper back as it settled against it. He could taste it, it was so… Strong.

Powerful, controlled, aggressive, that heedy scent of musk and thrill and… Male…

"Jim."

His head dropped down lazily to fixate on the door, a door shut with the barest of clicks. That smell filled his room, his mind, driving a spike of lust through him that sent his stomach towards the floor and his chin almost vertical to the cool tile as he strained to stare up into dark eyes.

Spock.

He had meant for it to leave his lips, truly he had; but the only thing he seemed capable of forming was a distraught whine that caused those brown eyes to narrow further, Spock's outstretched hand moving from the handle to turn the key held within the lock. An almost impossibly loud sound.

A moment's breath and then that scent was drowning him, Spock's face only inches away from his own where the taller Vulcan now kneeled on the floor before him.

"I had thought myself strong enough to stay away. To offer you a choice. Forgive me, Jim."

For a moment, the blonde stilled as Spock whispered to him, his voice harsh and deep. A hand came to cup his flushed cheek, the touch one he could have melted into. Then Spock's delicate fingers were ghosting over his cheekbone, almost afraid to touch, and Jim was met with the barest brush of Spock's mind against his own.

A snarl broke the cadet's frozen mask, his lip curling delicately over sharp, white teeth and Spock found himself suddenly forced to his back, a hand tight in his black hair as a pair of slender hips straddled his own, constricted only by the sleepwear he wore. That flushed face dropped down until Jim was cheek to cheek with the taller Vulcan, the snarl now a rumbling purr as, with no more skill than a child, he pushed his chaotic emotions against Spock's mind.

_Open.. Openopenopen… Wantpleasewant… Help… Help…_

_Needneedneed. Spock._

The feelings alone had Spock gasping, his spine arching from the floor and his own shields wrestling for control until his body responded and he had pinned the blonde beneath himself, his teeth bared as Jim writhed beneath him, the bearer's tangled mind pushing like a terrifying and aching desire against his walls.

He'd never before felt anything like it. So controlled, so practiced and perfect had his mind melds been in the past that this, this, was maddening. More than the blood fever of pon farr; more even than the thought that another may have taken his Jim from him, this was…

Spock groaned, his head dropping down swiftly, teeth capturing Jim's pale neck and biting down hard enough to mark the keening thing below him. The cadet purred, his legs splayed and his hips bucking mindlessly, eager for friction.

Spock rid himself of his sleep wear with a graceful ease, lifting his Jim with him until the panting blonde straddled his lap once more, his slender arms wrapped around Spock's shoulders to hold him there.  
><em><br>Please. Please. Please. Please. Please._

The dark haired Vulcan growled, his blood a steady molten bubble now as Jim's length slid against his stomach, his opening slick and wanting though Spock was of little doubt that the male had ever done this before. He needed to distract him… Take him from the first moment's searing pain that even pon farr could not help him with.

Brown eyes locked with a blue so glazed, Spock wondered whether the man could see or was finding his way through scent and touch of mind alone. Still he watched those blue eyes widen minimally as Spock pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, his fingers ready to slide over Jim's meld points.

"Open yourself to me, Jim."

The blonde groaned and with that Spock slipped his fingers into place and descended into chaos, his hips pushing forward on instinct to claim Jim, both body and mind.

His mind was overflowing, a steady thrum of liquid energy that should have left him with the very first push. But it had not. It was held in arms of steel and stone, relentlessly unbending as they captured all that Jim had to offer and held it close like a treasured gift.

The blonde was lost, sparks jolting his arms with each touch of his fingertips against Spock's strong back and his legs spread so wide he was certain it should have been hurting. All of it should have been hurting. Jim was not so innocent as to believe that what they were doing now should be anything other than raw and painful and achingly bittersweet. But Spock moved against him with a primal ease, sliding between Jim's legs as though there was no restriction and grasping Jim's lithe form to himself with one arm as though he weighed nothing.

_Open._

Jim's mind fluttered at the thought, only to settle down once more as Spock's subtle flicker of amusement thrummed heavily against…

Something…

A link? A path? Some fantastic thread of thought and touch and feel and Spock… that had sprung up between them like a magnet, so tightly wrung now that Jim felt he could brace himself upon it and not fear it snapping or dropping him.

_I will not drop you, ashayam._

_Trust you. . . Spock._

Jim keened, his nails bracing against the taller Vulcan's skin as he was brought to an end once more, his fluid like oil between their bodies, slick and clear and so cloyingly sweet that each release drove Spock harder and faster. The Commander's thoughts were a brace in themselves, straight and clear in his mind as though the man were speaking aloud. Against Jim's chaotic spur of sudden emotion and one-worded pleading it was both maddening and calming.

Jim did not know how long they remained in that cycle, slow and dragging and sliding until his eyes rolled back and his scent drove Spock faster and harder to an end that meant the beginning of slow and dragging once more.

When it seemed as though the pair burned no more and Jim's chaotic thoughts had been rendered still and silent in the hollow of protection Spock had created for him, the taller man moved them to the bed. His arms held fast to the blonde Vulcan whose mind dropped to the gentle lull of sleep, Jim's smirking satisfaction across their new bond causing Spock's lips to curve in the barest of smiles.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen: Not Getting Up**

_No. No get up. Not getting up. Stay. Tired, m'tired, wanna sleep, wanna sleep. Sleepsleepsleep... _

Spock stilled, the press of Jim against his mind a thousand times more intimate than the warm body now flush against his own. He had moved perhaps an inch against the silken sheets of the bed he had only a vague recollection of moving Jim's prone form to once his mind had somewhat returned to him. They lay still in the pose they had slept in, Jim wrapped firmly against Spock's body with both arms and legs, his blonde head nestled against Spock's side as his warm breath blew against the heated skin beneath him.

With the movement, those arms had tensed, a wrinkle furrowing that brow as his panic blew into Spock's mind like a wave, drenching the stoic stone that was usually the older man's thinking space so swiftly that Spock had frozen beneath the sensation.

This was Jim.

A simmering pool with underlying currents and curious bubbles that lapped against his mind both gently and with a keen determination that let Spock know he would never be able to exist without it. This was Jim. The breeder's mind existed within his own more thoroughly than even the bond with his mother and father, a very physical, very real link that would need years of practice if he were even to begin attempting to shield a portion of his own mind away.

But why would he dare? Spock fixed dark eyes on the creature settled so perfectly within the bend of his arm, a place he had all but carved for himself with Spock's permission. Blonde hair lay tousled against skin flushed the palest green, an aftermath of Jim's Time. Those normally blue eyes were sealed shut, lashes fluttering with the remnants of a dream even as his lips parted to take in a silent breath. He was beautiful. In both mind and body, he was the most beautiful thing Spock had ever seen.

Even asleep, his mind was alive with curiosity, with half-remembered thoughts and emotions; all blurring together to form the babbling pool that Spock had made of Jim Kirk's inner mind. His own strength, his logic and critical thinking was a stoic wall around such an oasis of free thinking and spirit. Sleek and unburdened and all but cradling that fascinating pool from the thoughts that might seek to harm it. He was a shield. His own shielding had reworked itself to include his new mate, Spock had no idea such a thing could even occur. It was... Incredible.

And he had taken it without permission.

Spock's eyes flickered upwards, towards the window through which light had begun to pour, early morning. He had scented Jim like an animal, tracked the trail from his room to this one despite his attempts to meditate, to leave the cadet in peace. Eager though the youth may have been last night, Spock felt his heart drop and his own, buried emotions roll deep within him; there was no chance that Jim had been in his right mind enough to grant Spock permission for the precious gift he had taken, for the bond he had forged between them. Breaking it now would be...

"NO!"

Jim surged upwards, his panic bursting full force against the edge of Spock's mind where Jim now existed, dragging a not-disimilar sensation of panic from the older Vuclan.

"Jim?" Spock rose, his hands moving to clasp the blonde's suddenly quaking body as Jim twisted in the sheets to stare up at him, his eyes wide with terror. "Jim, what is wrong?"

"You can't do it!" Jim shrieked, his thoughts one tumbling broken sentence after the other, untrained, impossible to grasp beyond the face that something had panicked the cadet from a peaceful sleep. "You can't do it!"

"Jim, I need you to calm down." Spock all but dragged the stiff figure closer, his own blood pumping with the thought that something he could not see had harmed the small Vulcan. "I cannot hear what you are trying to tell me, ashayam, your mind is screaming at me and I can find no logical source for it. Breathe, Jim, all is well."

The blonde chocked on a sob, his hands curling against Spock's chest and taking from the contact the patience Spock so readily offered him. It was new, to say the least. For his entire life, Jim had believed he would never desire to place his hands upon skin that was not his own. Spock, though, like the wall that had erupted around his own mind and given him a crucial link that would leave him never alone, offered only comfort. The skin beneath his hands now was as familiar as if he had memorised it all in a night's passion, as necessary to him now as the link that seemed to connect to his very heart. To break it...

"Don't break our link... Please, Spock, don't break our link... You promised you wouldn't drop me." The words were panic-stricken, the terror of an untrained child finding themselves suddenly without a familial bond after an abrupt accident and Spock felt a flicker of betrayal for the path his thoughts had taken. He had woken Jim from his sleep. His own turmoil had reduced his mate to this shaking thing that clung to him and stared up at him with wounded eyes.

"Forgive me, Jim." Spock wrapped his arms around the cadet, the falsity of thinking on breaking the link calming Jim's troubled thoughts. "It was an errant thought, and one I should not have even considered. To break a link between one Vulcan and another is harmful and shameful. To break a link between one Vulcan and a carrier is unthinkable. To break a link with you, Jim, would be a crime of which I would never forgive myself. I sought only to offer you a chance at freedom."

"Freedom?" Jim frowned, splaying his fingers against Spock's chest and pushing forward with his mind in a way that was clumsy and perhaps accidental. Still, Spock's inner musings flickered within his mind and the blonde snorted, swatting a hand against the Vulcan's chest just hard enough to warrant a sting to his fingers.

"You think you forced yourself on me? Really, Spock?" Jim glared up at the Commander, struggling until he had planted himself on his knees and could bring himself eye-to-eye with the half-Vulcan. "That's bullshit. I was one minute away from coming to look for you myself and I damn well didn't cross my legs when you came at me, did I?"

"Regardless, Jim, you were not in your right mind." Spock's eyes watched the man challenge him, his blue eyes unblinking and his hands crossed before his chest. The instinctive display would have almost been humorous were it not for the seriousness of the matter. "You do not possess all of the facts. As a breeder entering his Time, you should have been taken through it by a Council member so that no link could have been formed. As it stands, you are now bonded to I and I alone. As far as human customs are concerned, you and I are married."

"Good."

"I... Pardon?" Spock felt the gentle satisfaction that wormed its way to his own mind through Jim, a blunt, selfish emotion that brought with it the image of a fat cat with a bowl of cream. How... odd. Jim was nodding at him, his lips stretched in a smile and his blue eyes bright.

"I said good, now you can't get away from me."

Humour rippled through their bond, so pure and confident that it could have only come from Jim. No Vulcan raised on Vulcan would ever let such depth of emotion be seen by anyone, including a bondmate. Despite his teachings, however, Spock felt satisfaction and amusement that was entirely his own; a delicate, unused thing that welled within him before settling once more beneath the weight of logic. Jim was content with this bond. Spock's harbouring of guilt was unnecessary. All that remained to him now was a beautiful bondmate with a mind so unique Spock knew he would never find its equal. Jim Kirk was unequivocally and irreversibly his.

Jim shrieked, his hands reaching out to wrap slim fingers around biceps of trained muscle as Spock moved with liquid speed, rolling them so that Jim now lay back against the twisted sheets and the dark haired Vulcan watched him from above. The sound that rolled from Jim's lips was most definitely a purr, he conceded, blue eyes lidding as that body that was as familiar to him now as his own slid between his legs and Spock's arousal weighed heavily against his mind. It was a new thing, he understood, this arousal, to both he and Spock. This was something he needed to know, something that had happened within him because he was Vulcan and because he had found in Spock something he hadn't even known he was searching for. Whether it had been he who had dragged Spock down into this Heat and mindlessness with him or the other way around, Jim didn't know. He knew only that what had happened last night had been the most natural thing to ever occur to him and now he wanted more.

_So pretty, so pretty, so... Spock. My Spock. My Spock. My Spock. Myspockmyspockmyspockmyspock..._

_My James._

Jim groaned with the dark voice that rolled against his mind, more real and solid even than his own voice that seemed to want to think a thousand things at once. He had no control where his mind was concerned. Practiced in defence, in weaponry, in controlling a ship, yes; but never in this. His mind had been an open thing, sheltered now by Spock and Spock alone.

_HowdoItalk? WanttotalktoyouSpock... Want... Talk... How? How? _

_You are talking to me, Jim._

Spock felt a growl tremble deep within his chest as Jim's body shuddered beneath his own, blue eyes glazed with the effort it took to concentrate on the voice within his head. So untrained... So unused to things so many Vulcans took for granted. Jim's inner voice was a sigh, wispy and fleeting and run together so thoroughly it challenged Spock just to hear what words he longed to speak. There was nothing he could compare it to in his memories.

_My beautiful Jim. You have so much to learn._

Jim groaned again, hips bucking suddenly to bring their skin into contact, his fingers pressing harder against Spock's arms.

_God,teachmelater. Laterlaterlaterlater. Teach me later. Fuck me now. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_

Spock gripped Jim's clenching fingers with his own in a bruising kiss, a low purr leaving his lips at the keening wail it dragged from Jim's pink lips, the man's blonde curls whipping as he turned his head. Vulgarity painted his words, his need. A human response and one Spock could not help but find endearing, the words seared across his mind and pushed him harder against the lithe form beneath his own until Jim was gasping, his opening slick once more against heated, hardened flesh.

_ . . . Inside, want inside please fuck Spock please _

Spock complied with one swift thrust, drawing a cry from Jim's lips as they were reconnected once more, the blonde's body flushed emerald and trembling beneath a body equally as hot and equally as flushed. For one precious moment, they stilled, Jim's blue eyes slanting to take in the sharp features and brown eyes and sweat-slicked black hair that was Spock. Spock's dark eyes stared down at him, unblinking, his face a stoic mask despite the adoration and peace Jim knew was swiftly taking over the half-Vulcan's mind.

"Jim?"

Jim squeaked, body tensing in a move that had Spock suddenly growling above him as his hands sought to find purchase on the silken sheets. The voice sounded from the other side of the locked door once more, followed by a rattle of the handle.

"Jim?" Chris Pike sounded slightly panicked from behind the door, "Nyota said she heard you yelling, are you alright?"

###

**AN: To my first two reviewers Helpless Reader and KenDan55 thank you I'm glad you're enjoying the story ^^ KenDan55: I write a lot of Harry Potter and some South Park but I only have one other Star Trek AU story that is only a few chapters long and I've not uploaded that yet because I am unsure if there will be any interest in it and I don't know where exactly to take the storyline. Thank you for your kind comments though.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen:**

Chris Pike felt the beginnings of a thousand grey hairs. He was too damn old for this. He was too damn old to babysit James on a starship, he was too damn old to be running on rescue missions for the boy he looked on as a son and he was too damn old to be walking in on said son wriggling and whining like some cat in heat beneath his Commanding Officer.

The Captain of the Enterprise ran hands roughened with calluses through freshly washed hair, his body slouched in the straight-backed chair Uhura had guided him to after the pair had all but run from Jim's bedroom. The Lieutenant sat beside him now amongst several other Starfleet officers and medical attendants, her lips twitching in an all too obvious grin that she was holding back with the barest of attempts. He glared at her, shaking his head when the look granted him nothing but a firmer clutch on the hot tea she held in her hands and a snort from her throat.

"You're no blasted help."

"I offered to comm. Bones and have him beam Kirk aboard, I'm sure Doctor McCoy would only be delighted to deal with the aftermath of an unsatisfied Vulcan, he's the only one brave enough to speak up to Spock half the time." The communications officer offered him a raise of one of her dark eyebrows, brown eyes bright with the humour of the situation even as her Captain groaned and leaned back in his seat.

"I'd rather not learn the consequences of separating two Vulcans when they're... in that sort of way, Ms. Uhura, thank you. Last thing I need is Spock tearing his way through my blasted ship to find Jimmy. Or, God forbid, for the lad to scramble the damn transporter trying to make his way back down." Chris winced, images he could have gone his whole life without seeing popping before his eyes even as he tried to scrub them clear. Bloody hell, Winona and George would have his head. A routine mission, he had promised the woman and he'd gone and gotten her little boy first kidnapped and then jumped on by a Vulcan. Just what the hell had Spock been thinking? He scowled, twisting in his seat to face the only other non-human in the room; a man whose impassive face could have almost passed for smug.

"Not to be disrespectful, but just what is your son thinking, Sarek? Vulcan or not, that's James Kirk up there and he is a citizen of Earth and a ward still under the name of his mother and father. From what I knew of the whole affair, the boy had a simple crush on my Commander, now he's up there... Doing that!" Pike glared at the second snort Uhura let slip, his mouth twisting in a frown.

Ambassador Sarek was looking every bit the respectful Vulcan official he had always been, his attire impeccable and his posture rigid as he sat in the stiff chairs. "We do not speak of it even among our own kind, though Spock will have explained it to James. There is no fear that your ward was forced against his will, Captain, I assure you. Spock may not be in perfect control of his emotions but he is an honourable Vulcan and man. From what I spoke of with him, he cares greatly for the Breeder and had thought to offer James time to consider his options and other potential mates. It seems, though, that James has entered his Time early. Though what is occurring may be abhorrent to you, I cannot bring myself to feel anything but relief for the situation. Had Spock offered James an alternative partner, my son would have perished."

"I don't understand," Nyota frowned, scooting forward in her seat to place a hand on Chris' clenching fist. "I know Vulcans are secretive, sir, but this is our friend. James is practically a son to Chris and he thinks as we do, as a human. Isn't there anything you could tell us about what's happening?" The woman smiled shortly, her gaze sliding to where Amanda sat by her husband's side, her pale face battling with emotions and her brown hair tamed from her brow in a simple plait. "We're not saying we disagree with what's happening. We're not trying to imply that Spock could have forced Jim, I saw for myself that it was love at first sight, I was there when they met. But you must understand that if this concerns Jim then it concerns us too. We're his family. To support him and to understand what he's going through, we need to be educated."

Sarek's dark eyes focused on the Lieutenant, taking in the Captain's slowly calming posture as the woman spoke and worded everything that the Captain himself wanted to say, but feared the subject too close to home to do so properly. It was a taboo subject, yes, discussed only when absolutely necessary and rarely when a Breeder was concerned. It all seemed too personal a subject to divulge to any human, and yet, in everything but physical appearance James Kirk was human. It was a strange situation, if ever he had been in one. A gentle pressure against his arm drew the Vulcan's attention, his stoic face tilting to watch his little wife smile up at him, her beauty undiminished despite the years that had been longer to her than they had been to him. His Amanda. With a sigh, Sarek stood, his fingers linking two of Amanda's own in a soft kiss before he turned to the Captain.

"I will tell you and Lieutenant Uhura alone, Captain Pike. Your other crewmembers may return to the ship, it will be some time yet before my son and James Kirk leave that bedroom."

###

"An unannounced Breeder?" T'Mera shook her head, her short black hair striking against her cheeks. "There is no such thing. Each Temple Guardian is given the child within weeks of their birth. Each Acting Nurse must report the birth of a Bearer as law states and there is none, woman nor Breeder, who can give birth without the aid of a Nurse. This is known, there is no logic in seeking a flaw in the system."

"Understood, Guardian T'Mera, but be that as it may, there was an unannounced Breeder birthed approximately twenty-three Terran years ago." Karek slanted his finger against the PADD Captain Pike had given the Vulcan Council containing the basic biography of one James Tiberius Kirk. The youngest of the group of High Council members swiped a lock that allowed the image of the grinning blonde to float a foot above the sleek table they had gathered around. Looking no more than a youth about to blossom to adulthood, James' bright smile of white teeth and flushed cheeks forced the five Temple Guardians to straighten, brows drawn down as they took in the boy's idly cropped mop of shoulder-length ringlets, his ears barely visible beneath the mass of blonde. His eyebrows quirked up in a gentle, dark slope that was aesthetically pleasing and almost scandalous on a face that expressed so visibly the humanity it had been influenced by. The photo was a recent one, Karek knew, taken hours before the crew had beamed to Vulcan and updated by the boy's personal doctor.

"That is not possible." T'Mera all but whispered, her dark eyes focused on the small image before it fluttered out of sight. She gaped at the group of men and woman on the Council, knowing only her fellow Temple Guardians enough to allow the slip in her mask and yet unable to prevent it. She frowned at the woman by her side, an older Vulcan by the name of T'Saa who governed over the Temple situated just outside the Vulcan Capital. T'Saa shook her head slowly, her gaze narrowed.

"He is unknown to me." She spoke to the Council, "as I have little doubt that he is unknown to T'Mera and to the three who run the Breeder homes further north and south of this place. Were it not for his features, I would have named him as human."

Senla nodded softly from where he sat by the older Vulcan's side, his eyes a pale enough brown to warrant attention from his fellow Vulcan males enough that he had devoted his life to assisting the Breeders given to him. "It is true. In the years I have been a Guardian, only ten Breeders have ever crossed my threshold and four did not make it past adolescence. Of those not bonded, only Valec and Temon remained with me. As you know, Valec was lost to us in his attempts to escape an unnecessary betrothal." Senla felt his lips twist in distaste, his mind working to not show the contempt he still held for those upon the Council that had voted to allow Valec become a possible solution to violence in the older clans of the East. It had been a stupid decision then and it remained a stupid and tragic decision now with the boy's demise upon the Cruiser that had been attacked by Orions. If this Breeder had escaped to Earth, Senla held nothing but respect for him.

"Peace, Senla, we have all grieved for Valec. He was an honourable Breeder." Karek passed a glance down at the smaller Vulcan, only to receive a hiss in response.

"He was an honourable Vulcan. Much more than the likes of some."

T'Pau raised her hand with an impassive scowl, moving her sights to the two Guardians that had yet to speak, Skena and an older male by the name of Solek. "Neither of you can claim to know this Vulcan, but I ask that you think upon who his family may be. He has been given the name James Tiberius Kirk and was left upon the doorstep of the human Winona Kirk and her husband. Since his birth, she has helped him to grow and healed his wounds and protected him from those who may seek to do him harm. It is more than any human could have done for any child. But," The ancient female cast a glance down at the smiling face upon the PADD, her eyes softening, "he is Vulcan and he is family. It is our duty as his homeland's leaders to offer him the chance with that family, no matter if James chooses not to seek it."

"What choice does he have?" A Vulcan by the name of Skena quirked a dark brow, his pale fingers bridging before his face. "He is a Breeder, no? By Vulcan law, his mother should be punished and the Nurse who tended her for not declaring the child. He should have been brought to one of the five Temples not left writhing in filth like the humans, who knows how this has contaminated his mind and body? I say he be taken for Cleansing and allowed a mate in whomever chooses to lower themselves to such a degree simply to have children. Of the thirty Breeders given to me, eighteen have been bonded and bred by High standing Vulcans and the rest will follow come maturity. I'll see to it the boy is given some degree of honour back despite his unappealing background."

" Skena, Nirak!" Senla growled where he sat, T'Saa's hand upon his arm the only thing preventing him from rising to strike the man in the mouth, "his mind is more human than Vulcan, do you not listen to T'Pau? You'll break him if you were to force him into such a situation. Damned if I will not continue to object to that... fool's role as a Guardian. I have been saying since before the beginning that he is no good. Did he not take two of his own Breeders entrusted into his care as his own bonded?"

"There's no law stating such a thing is wrong, Senla," Kerak hushed the small Vulcan with a withering glare, before slanting his gaze at the tall Vulcan with the vicious black eyes, "though if Belka has one more incident involving the Medical centre, he and Damla will be taken from you, Skena, this is already known to you. Your position as Temple Guardian is under supervision, be warned."

T'Mera let loose a sigh of triumph suddenly, leaving her seat to whip the PADD from beneath the fingers of another Council member much to his surprise. The female almost smiled back at the photo of the blonde, her eyes bright. "I know not his Sire nor his family but was there not a Nurse assigned to a private delivery in the outskirts twenty-three Terran years ago? Did she not return of reports to a Breeder being born deceased to the young T'Pur?"

T'Pau sighed, the name of the young woman one that would never leave her mind. Disgraced as the youth might have been for becoming with child from a Vulcan of such a prestigious clan, and rejected from a possible bonding with the child's father, she had been kind-hearted to all and a degree more human than most T'Pau had ever met. "What of it," the woman sounded weary, "we all know the tale of T'Pur, her Nurse came to find her body outside and irrevocably damaged. The birth killed her as surely as it did her child. There is a report for the burial of the infant, I saw it myself, it was to be buried with T'Pur as her body refused to unhand the bundle of warm cloth even in death. It is a tragedy, one not lightly spoken of and most certainly one in a long line of Breeder demises. Why do you speak of it, T'Mera?"

The brunette steadied in her seat, slanting her gaze at the unique blue eyes and sun-bleached hair of James Kirk.

"What if there was no baby in the bundle T'Pur held? What if it was only cloth and bedding?"

Senla felt his lips part in surprise. It was an idea never before considered. So rarely did it occur that a woman would die with her infant clasped against her, the pair lost to complications of birth but unaccepting of separation. It was simply natural to allow the two to be buried or burned as one, together in this life and the next. The circumstances had been unusual, he understood. T'Pur had been discovered outside her home, and her family had paid for nothing more than a commoner's burial, refusing to say a parting word to their daughter and lost child. The Sire of the baby had only been known by the family and Council, a means of protecting the Vulcan's name. Was it possible that T'Pur had survived long enough to take the child to the only humans stationed on Vulcan at the time?

"That is completely illogical." Kerak scowled before Senla shook his head, a brief grin lighting his lips before his face blanked in an impressive mask.

"Of course it is not," he swiped the PADD from T'Mera, ignoring her grunt as he palmed the screen to have that picture hovering above the table once more. "T'Pur was a strong woman. She would have done everything within her power to get her son to safety if she believed the Temples would have done him no good. There are many females eager to raise their Breeders rather than give them over but none speak of it, perhaps she was alike in mindset and stronger in resolve? That Nurse could have been wrong, she was young, was she not? There have been cases of infants being born pale and without breath only to come to life under gentle duress."

"Cases of Vulcans, Senla, not of Breeders. They are born weak, they grow up weak and they remain weak. There is a reason there are placed somewhere safe and alone, far from illness and provocation." Senla snapped his teeth at the wide-eyed Skena, turning from the Vulcan with a growl.

"What if this one survived? What if this is T'Pur's baby?" he stared up at the Breeder's soft face, young and sweet but with a brazen tilt to his chin that almost reminded Senla of Valec in the youth's younger years when discipline had been lax and Senla had thrived on the boy's curious nature. He had not known T'Pur, though he knew her parents existed still within the Capital with a second daughter who had just recently bonded and moved south. Would the pair have softened enough to allow this young Vulcan a chance to know the only family he had left?

"A familial test, then," T'Pau stared at the blonde's photo with a soft heart, recalling the plight of T'Pur wearily and with some regret. If there was more that could have been done for the misfortunate girl, then it should have been T'Pau that could have offered the assistance. Pity, however, would get her nowhere. "I will send for T'Rala and Ronn come evening and allow them the chance to know of the mystery Breeder."

"And what of their daughter? She may be much younger than her sister, but she is alike T'Pur in physical and non-physical means." T'Mera pursed her lips thoughtfully, "a blood test will prove familial bonds through Ronn and T'Rala, and I am aware that the young female is recently bonded, however she may wish to know of her own nephew and her blood could be closest in determining a bond between the family and young... James."

T'Pau nodded once, her eyes slanting. "I will inform T'Pring to make herself available also."


End file.
